Agent Secretly changed contract!!!!

wow. guy sounds like a real 'sharp pointy object'. I guess you want the house, but I would be talking to the guys employer – unless of course he is the owner. Reminds me of the time I had a Jenman agent (Professionals franchise) principal ring up the guy I paid to do a building inspection and blast him for being so critical and asking him to review his findinds and call me back. The builder gave him a serve too – as he was working for me. as a sidepoint, though, I keep tabs on the agent, and they are no longer a 'Jenman' agent. ……read into that whatever you like. However back to your issue – if you have the original contract, and the add in looks as obvious as you say, I think you could get them into a bit of strife – it is fraud – no two ways about it. All the best – hope it works out.

woah. serious conflict there. solicitor should be able to extort I mean negotiate the price lower due to the FRAUD

James007.   There are two issues relating to your post.   The first is one of legality on the Agent adding a date post signing by you as the Buyer.   One question that I would ask is.   Was it done when the Seller signed the contract?  If so it is a counter offer and will require an initial of acceptance by yourself to ratify the alteration.   However if it was indeed done after the signing by both parties, then the Agent is at risk.

In saying all of that, I would bring your attention to the fact that no Solicitor worth his salt would ever draw up a  condition without a 'due by date'.   The reality is that if there is no due by date on the contract, you don't have to advise acceptance or rejection right up to settlement date, so the Seller doesn't know if he has sold or not.

Jon

Hi James,

As the contract was altered after you signed it, it is no longer binding, only you can make it so by initialling the alteration and accepting the condition.   You must decide if you still want the property and if you do, I would advise that you perhaps renegotiate the date for the Building Inspection to your and the Sellers satisfaction.   In my opinion at this point in time, you don't have an enforcable contract.

I understand how difficult it was over the Christmas period to sort out times, but the clause must still have an end date.   Perhaps it would have been prudent to word the clause in such a way as to allow for extension to the condition should you not be able to complete by the due date.

Jon

James, I also feel that you're trying to take advantage of this situation. As Jon has pointed out, it's unethical to try and enter a contract with absolutely no time limit on getting your building and pest, and you seemed to "gloat" a bit about thinking you have gotten away with this elsewhere on the forum.

What's your problem with the date the agent specified? If you already had your building and pest done by then, and were planning to go ahead, then no harm has been done to you. If not, then either negotiate an extension to building and pest, or pull out.

But I'm with Linar, I think you're just trying to get the price down, without good reason. Either it's a good deal and you proceed, or you walk away. But trying to continue and screw the vendor for a lower price because of some possible dubious action by the agent is unethical on your part.

And incidentally, every purchase contract that I've signed (where I was making an offer) was undated. I think agents have told me it has to be dated when the sellers accept the offer. (This has been repeated so many times that I assume that it's true, but I'm happy to be corrected.) So the date of contract – surely a very important date! – has always been filled in after I've signed, and without me counter-signing. Does this mean I've never had a binding contract, or that every purchase I've made has involved "fraud" by the agent?

Thanks, Jon!

Sorry that I misunderstood you, James. You hadn't mentioned that there were questionable items in the building and pest inspection. I think that you can't push the line that you had a binding contract with an unspecified timeframe for building and pest – because presumably the copy that you have with no date wasn't signed by the vendors, right? So they hadn't accepted that offer. If the agent added the date prior to the vendor signing, then effectively the insertion of the date constituted a counter-offer by the vendors, which you hadn't accepted (by signing/initialling). Therefore I'm with Jon that you had no binding contract, so you should request for your deposit to be refunded on the basis that there never was a binding contract. Don't take the line that you're terminating; I believe your argument should be that there never was a "meeting of the minds" and therefore never a valid contract.

Then you have to consider whether you want to make a new offer to purchase the property. Bear in mind you'll obviously have to deal with the same vendor and real estate agent, and (I presume) they won't let you make your offer subject to building and pest because you now have that information. It depends whether you think you can still negotiate a worthwhile deal on this property in those circumstances.

And I really don't think that either the agent or vendor intended anything shonky. I think that the agent probably noticed there was no time limit and put one in. I really doubt that he thought you'd have a problem with it. And if you'd had a conveyancing solicitor, they should have made you well aware of this time limit immediately, and the issue could have been sorted out much sooner.

Best wishes, and apologies if I misjudged you.