Well it looks like we’ve fallen at the first hurdle – on Monday we put down £1000 cheque to reserve our new house in our name, we were given a written agreement with our signatures and the builders signatures to confirm this. Thinking we…..

…..were definitely buying this house we instructed solicitors, and dismissed our estate agent as this was a part-exchange arrangement with Esprit Homes. On Friday we had a phone call to say that the managing director had decided to sell the house to someone else who was able to pay up front as they didn’t have a house to sell, so the company wouldn’t have the hassle and cost of part-exing. We have sent a letter of complaint to the company as we consider this to be a rather underhand way of doing business. At no time were we told that the arrangement had to be authorised by the managing director before it became viable.

It seems incredible to me, in the current flat housing market that it is still possible to be gazumped! Surely if we have paid money for a property to be reserved, then it is reserved for us? Apparantly not! The money has been returned to us (they didn’t actually cash the cheque). Has anyone else had an experience like this? Is this common with new builds? We have bought and sold older houses many times but have never been involved with a new one before. Looks like it’s a completely different ball game.