Gazumping – agreeing to sell your property to one party and then reneging to sell to someone else for a higher offer – has again become common since the start of the property market recovery. The Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers (IPAV) is now calling for a new type of legally binding contract to eliminate gazumping at the “sale agreed” stage.

IPAV reckons gazumping now affects more than 2pc of sales nationally and the problem is growing fast. “With demand outstripping supply this distasteful practice has, unfortunately, become a feature of the housing market once more and it will become even more prevalent as property prices continue to rise, unless measures are taken to outlaw it,” said IPAV’s chief executive Pat Davitt. Gazumping is legal in Ireland even when deposits have been taken. Mr Davitt says auctioneers are being unfairly held responsible because buyers don’t understand that agents are acting on the instructions of the vendor.

“Unfortunately, buyers tend to blame the auctioneer and this ultimately impacts on the agent’s reputation – sometimes to the degree that the buyer won’t deal with that agent again or that if they do, they are usually hostile. “An agent’s reputation is far more valuable to them than any increase in a fee that handling a gazumping might bring. “The property that is the subject of the contract should also be taken off the market once the sales contract is signed,” he added.  Mr Davitt said anti gazumping contracts had proven successful in other countries like South Africa. Gazumping has not been seen here since the Celtic Tiger years when property prices were also increasing at 1pc-plus per month.

It takes months until the final binding sales contract is concluded – a period during which a €300,000 house can rise in value by €6,000 to €10,000.Greedy vendors can now benefit substantially from a gazumping while failed buyers have their spending power slashed by a rising market.Such a measure would also counteract gazundering – whereby the vendors seek to pull out of a previously agreed deal – usually in a falling market. Gazundering was commonplace from 2007 to 2011 while prices were falling.