Offer to purchase question

airborne said:
The insidious "other buyer", it magically makes reason and thoughtful consideration go flying out the window if you aren't careful
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Yeah... Not our brightest moment! :cautious:

But thanks for each and everyone's response and advice to this thread.

I truly hope it helps other prospective buyers to take things slow and very serious.
 
APoc184 said:
UPDATE:

Just received a mail from agent which was a direct reply to my withdrawal of original offer.

She says the Whatsapp messages from the sellers confirming they accept the higher amount is enough evidence/confirmation of offer.

Then she follows up by saying she is going to forward us Page 3 of the original OTP to fully sign again next to OUR amended amount. And in her words... "Then that will make the deal final and the sellers cannot change their minds again." Erm... not exactly OUR offer, but okay.
She wants us to fully sign, scan and return the document to her immediately. She says, and I quote.... "Then I will take it to the sellers tomorrow to sign the counter offer"

In the next mail she attaches the amended page 3 of the original OTP with the amended amount.
She again says we must both sign fully next to the changes and then says: "THIS COUNTER OFFER WAS IN PLACE SINCE 18H00 LAST NIGHT"

On the attached document the original purchase price is scratched out and changed to the higher amount, as well as the amount we will be applying for for a bond.
Only her full signature is next to both amendments.

Again asking for us to immediately sign and send it back to her.
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Am a lawyer. The moment that the seller made a counter-offer, s/he has by conduct rejected the previous offer. There is case law to this effect. There is no requirement that you "withdraw" your original offer - it was rejected by virtue of the seller's conduct in making a counter-offer. A counter-offer implies that the original offer was not acceptable. The agent appears to be trying to paper things up to cure the defects.

If you are confident in the facts, and do not want the house, I would stand by the view that the counter offer rejected the original offer and/or the original offer expired on its terms when the deadline arrived.
 
IzZzy said:
Am a lawyer. The moment that the seller made a counter-offer, s/he has by conduct rejected the previous offer. There is case law to this effect. There is no requirement that you "withdraw" your original offer - it was rejected by virtue of the seller's conduct in making a counter-offer. A counter-offer implies that the original offer was not acceptable. The agent appears to be trying to paper things up to cure the defects.

If you are confident in the facts, and do not want the house, I would stand by the view that the counter offer rejected the original offer and/or the original offer expired on its terms when the deadline arrived.
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Thank you for your reply @IzZzy. We did the withdrawal and rejection and all that just to cover all our bases. Nervous moments for us.

In your opinion and especially for future reference to help other people.

Was the counter-offer for R30k made via Whatsapp enough to cancel the original offer. Or was it suppose to be in writing and signed by the Sellers?

Agent's exact message was: "#Seller2 (Husband's name) wants R30k more... Can you go to X amount"

We didn't reply on that the whole night and were pretty busy the morning with kids and work crisis.

Then she forwarded us a message that she sent #Seller2.
"Hi #Seller2, the buyers are not willing to go lower because they feel the property is already X Amount over the average area price and they want to save the extra money for transfer cost. They are already pre-approved for the original offer amount. Please let me urgently know when we can expect an answer from you. Did your wife speak to you about this"
Again. We never said any of that. It was like she was getting worried about a lost sale.

At that stage she started phoning like crazy to get hold of us and we decided to keep everything via whatsapp. And I came running here for advice.
 
ToxicBunny said:
One of the things I will be doing going forward if I sign any Offers to Purchase in future, is adding a small addition to that clause of something along the lines "At an acceptable interest rate to the buyer" ... just leaves the door open to bail out at the last minute...
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you just say, subject to approval of a satisfactory bond, leaves it waaaay open
 
APoc184 said:
Was the counter-offer for R30k made via Whatsapp enough to cancel the original offer. Or was it suppose to be in writing and signed by the Sellers?
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Yes. In this case, the method of transmission of the counter-offer is irrelevant. From the contractual perspective, the fact that the counter-offer was made would be enough. However the transfer of immovable property must, in law, be reduced to writing.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Thats generally where I'm going with it... just gives you the option of rejecting the bond and kill the deal in its tracks.
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If you were offered a bond @ prime less, and rejected it - I would argue that in the circumstances, that was a satisfactory bond and the condition is fulfilled. Any subjective conduct which prevents fulfilment of a condition can be deemed to be fulfilled based on the doctrine of fictional fulfilment.
 
IzZzy said:
If you were offered a bond @ prime less, and rejected it - I would argue that in the circumstances, that was a satisfactory bond and the condition is fulfilled. Any subjective conduct which prevents fulfilment of a condition can be deemed to be fulfilled based on the doctrine of fictional fulfilment.
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Of course there are avenues that would cause argument...

I'd just remove the "receive a bond" part of the clause, or at least limit it down to something like @ prime less....

Then again, the argument would entail lawyers and possibly a court case, and that might be a stretch to far for many sellers.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Of course there are avenues that would cause argument...

I'd just remove the "receive a bond" part of the clause, or at least limit it down to something like @ prime less....

Then again, the argument would entail lawyers and possibly a court case, and that might be a stretch to far for many sellers.
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Agreed.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Of course there are avenues that would cause argument...

I'd just remove the "receive a bond" part of the clause, or at least limit it down to something like @ prime less....

Then again, the argument would entail lawyers and possibly a court case, and that might be a stretch to far for many sellers.
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Requirements not clearly defined, or very difficult to materialize, would cause many sellers to just decline.
If you make a decent offer, but want prime -2%, I would rather just decline then and there rather than take my property off the market for a month or two while waiting for the bank to offer you prime, and then the sale falling through.
 
APoc184 said:
Can we walk away from this deal?
Especially since she now messaged my wife and said that we still have a binding contract until 18h00 tonight and seller #2 can still sign it and we can get the home.

To be honest we would really like out of this property for now. Home buyer Noob!
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Easily. Regardless of the offer/counter-offer issue, there will be other suspensive clauses in the OTP which you can ride out. The first that springs to mind will be the "subject to approved bond finance in 'x' amount of days" clause.
 
Barbarian Conan said:
Requirements not clearly defined, or very difficult to materialize, would cause many sellers to just decline.
If you make a decent offer, but want prime -2%, I would rather just decline then and there rather than take my property off the market for a month or two while waiting for the bank to offer you prime, and then the sale falling through.
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Oh agreed... its a two way street without any shadow of a doubt.. if an OTP was put in front of me with ridiculous clauses I would also reject it, but I would be hard pressed to reject an OTP that had a reasonable clause surrounding the bond approval in it.
 
Almost had a heart attack!!

Email comes through and the first few lines pop up on my Garmin watch.
It is the agent replying to my mail from this morning saying we reject the offer and won't sign and we are no longer pursuing the property.

All I can see on the watch is:

Thank you #Buyer1 & #Buyer2.

I am sorry but........
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And I thought here we go!!!!

But alas... It continues with "....but I take note of your rejection".
She continues with "Please let me know which areas and max price you are looking for and I will continue looking for you"

She read the mail 5min after I sent it. So pretty sure she asked her lawyer about the legality of everything that transpired in the past 48hrs before replying!

PHEW!!!!
 
I've said it two times already but I'll say it again.

THANK YOU ALL!!
Especially @bokka1 and @Sputnik100 in the beginning and @IzZzy at the end for the professional opinions.

And then a massive thank you to the friend of a friend of a friend that made the suggestion to get the sellers to believe if they make a higher counter offer we will accept and sign. Just to let the the original offer lapse and be withdrawn.

Wife is going to check if that property close to kids' school is still available and try get a viewing for later the week or weekend.
 
APoc184 said:
She read the mail 5min after I sent it. So pretty sure she asked her lawyer about the legality of everything that transpired in the past 48hrs before replying!
PHEW!!!!
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Well at least she had the presence of mind to seek advice before throwing threats around.

On the matter of giving them a maximum price, I make sure to tell them I'll pay what I think is a fair price. Otherwise, and had this with my mother's last purchase a few years ago, the seller oddly comes up with a counter-offer which is somehow exactly your maximum.
 
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