Thanks so much for reading our story and considering to help with our petition to bring about change to Isle of Man property law.

BackGround:

Property law on the Isle of Man requires change, so buyers are protected from the heinous act of “gazumping” & sellers are better protected from buyers who may decide to retract from a sale at the very last minute.

Whilst neither the vendor or the estate agent in our story, acted outside the realms of the law, we feel the actions to be tragic for so many reasons. Please help us bring about a change to protect both sellers and buyers from having to endure not only financial losses in scenarios such as the one we’ve experienced, but also the almost irreparable emotional damage such actions can cause to families.

Our Proposal:

We want to call on the Isle of Man government to reform the law with respect of property purchases and sales as follows:

- An offer, once made on a property and where advocacy has been duly instructed by both parties, shall, at that point, become a legally binding contract between the buyer and seller.
- If either party of a sale/purchase decides to retract from the process, they (the retracting party) shall become fiscally responsible for  legal costs (advocacy & conveyance fees) of the other party, incurred at the point of retraction.

Addendum (20th Nov 21)

- The seller must provide a “survey” for the property being sold, which should be no greater than 90 days old at time of offer being made by a buyer. Once an offer is made & accepted, the buyer legally accepts the results of the survey as part of the purchasing process.

Our Story:

We are a family of 4 children (4, 9, 11 & 13), 2 grown-ups (40 & 40 something) and 1 hamster; As like many others, we found our dream forever-home and without question, after the 1st viewing, put in an offer through the representing estate agent, at the asking price. It was a beautiful 6 bedroom seafront property on Douglas road in Castletown, for us it was just perfect.

We were asked by the vendor to move fast, due to time pressures on their purchase of a new house; So to proceed as quickly as was feasibly possible, we took a risk and paid for the survey, advocate searches and fee’s ahead of a mortgage approval with the bank. All was going great, we got our mortgage approval, survey passed with flying colours and searches were progressing on time; The vendor allowed us access on several occasions to the property to have carpets and furniture measured up and we paid deposits for work to be done – We were all very much super excited and super happy, the kids had even chosen their rooms and paint colour.

Alas, it all changed horribly! With just over 10 days to go before completion, we received a call from our estate agent “CowleyGroves” to inform us that the vendor had pulled out of the sale, after being approached direct by another agent “HarmonyHomes”, with a cash-buyer. At the 11th hour, we were quite simply & royally, “gazumped”; Our hopes and dreams were dashed. CowleyGroves tried so hard to help gain a reverse in the decision by the vendor, putting forward our offer of agreeing to exchange earlier, pay full in cash, paying more, but nothing swayed the decision, the vendor simply didn’t want to consider us anymore and we were given strict instructions by their advocate to cease and desist all communication on the matter.

Our kids were devastated, we were devastated; Our house was packed, half our property was already in storage ready for the move, we had a chain behind us with their hopes and dreams pinned on it all happening. So, we did the only honourable thing we could and we completed on the sale of our house, so that our chain (also families with children) didn’t have to suffer the consequences of the actions of our vendor.

So, here were are, officially homeless, having lost a lot of money, with limited properties on the market within the location we need, or our price range for a family of 6, and all just before Christmas. We are now living in AirBnB’s; Thanks to the wonderful efforts of some amazing estate agents (Deanswood, CowleyGroves, Garforth Gray and Grays) all trying super hard to help us find a home. We count ourselves lucky to have enough savings to weather this storm and afford a roof over our heads, even if it is an AirBnB.