Imagine renting a house that you would like to buy. It would be ideal if the landlord agreed to sell you the house once you could afford to buy it, and the family in this story was in that exact situation.

However, there was a big problem. They didn’t have this deal in writing, and if there’s one thing that’s very, very important, it’s to always get important agreements in writing. Otherwise, there’s really no official deal at all.

This story is written by a family friend who shares how she did some research in order to help the family buy the house, even when the situation got a lot more complicated. It took a lot of work, and a lot of people in the neighborhood pitched in to help. It was definitely a team effort, but they were all determined not to let the new landlords get their way.

Let’s read all about it.

We reverse gazumped a greedy landlord and it was glorious.

“Gazumping occurs when an agent or seller accepts an offer you make to buy a property at an agreed price but the property is sold to someone else. This usually happens when the vendor sells the property for a higher amount.”

This happened 15 years ago and it is one of the proudest moments of my life.

My best friend and her husband have 5 kids together. They lived in an expensive city and rented an old 4 bedroom house for $400 per week. The house was very rundown with a disgusting kitchen and stink drains but it was all they could afford at the time.

Still, they made it work.

What awful timing!

The owner was a nice old lady who as extremely wealthy and very fond of my friend. She froze the rent for 5 years and promised to let them buy the house once they had saved enough to get a loan from the bank.

As she had helped other people in a similar way, they knew they could trust her and so they saved every cent they could. It took them 5 years but they finally told her they were ready..

Two days later, the nice old lady passed away; before anything was put in writing. 😔

This is where it starts to get complicated.

Enter the new owners. The lady’s 4 children. Each extremely wealthy in their own right; they inherited a huge portfolio of properties.

When they first spoke to my friends, they assured them that the sale would still go through but they would have to wait until probate had settled.

Confident, my friends started making some changes to the place. They started by stripping wallpaper, painting and making plans.

Finally probate was settled and the owners agreed to go ahead with the sale for the previously agreed price.

How awful!

My friends applied for the loan but to their shock, it was refused.

The owners had raised the asking price by $80000 without telling my friends.

To make things even worse, the house would be put on the open market. In 7 days there would be an Open House and, with the market the way it was, it would probably sell immediately.

My friends were devastated.

It could end really badly for the friends.

They might be able to borrow enough but it would take longer than a week to get.

To make matters worse, property prices and soared recently and rents had gone up a lot whilst theirs had been frozen. Not only were my friends going to struggle to get the money. If the place was sold to someone else and they were asked for a higher rent or were evicted, it would be nearly impossible to find an affordable place with more than 2 bedrooms.

I was scared for my friends but I was also incandescently angry.

Those greedy sods were some of the wealthiest people in the city. They were screwing over a struggling family for less than $20000 each. They didn’t need the money. It as pure greed and it was obvious that they’d always planned to do this.

They had a lot of work to do.

So while my friends scrambled to come up with the money, I started plotting.

I looked up advice on what helps to make a sale. We needed to make the place as undesirable as possible without making my friends look like bad tenants.

Uncluttered: We moved all the furniture in from the walls, added some extra furniture and borrowed ornaments and hung a load of motorcycle memorabilia on the walls. The place felt more smaller.

Smell: My friend boiled a head of cabbage on the stove and we sprayed ammonia around the front and back doors (because it smells like all the neighbourhood cats had been marking their territory). We also poured 2 dozen rotten eggs down the drain to make it smell like sewer gas 🤢.

They even got the neighbors involved.

Neighbourhood: We obtained a mouldy old couch and dumped in front yard of the neighbour across the road (with permission of course).

Neighbourhood x2: We started calling friends for help. Anybody with a loud and crappy car was asked to do a few laps in front of the block during the Open Day. The street was unusually busy that day. Everyone we knew found a reason to drive by. It was practically rush hour.

Neighbourhood x3: We called out mates from the rugby club (full contact football without any of that soft padding). A big portion of our club are very large men. The next door neighbour set up a bbq in their front yard and we offered free food and cheap beer. They came on motorcycles, wearing their roughest gear. There was quite a crowd.

The open house didn’t go very well.

A lot of people showed up for the Open Day.

Quite a few were in and out within minutes.

One lady sat in her car and watched the party next door before driving away.

The neighbor who talked to a potential buyer really added to the story.

The one bloke who stayed any length time, was brave enough to start up a conversation with someone leaving the party. He asked if they were often there and was told every couple of weeks or so, they have an after party morning and the party the night before was 3 doors up.

The party goer also helpfully mentioned the troublesome drains that are always getting blocked by tree roots and stinking up the place.

Never Miss a Story

Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.

The potential buyer left without making an offer.

It worked out well for OP’s friends.

So my friends were the only ones to make an offer.

They still had to pay more than they’d planned but not as much as the greed jerks wanted.

My friends signed the papers and paid the deposit that day.

So when the brave buyer put in an offer of $30000 more than my friends, there was nothing the owners could do about it (strict anti gazumping laws). I would have loved to see the owners faces when they found out. 😈

OP sounds like a really good friend.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a tenant who walked away from their lease after the landlord hassled them over renting month-to-month.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person liked the story.

Another person is reminded of a similar situation.

OP is definitely a good friend.

Another person is confused.

While the landlady’s kids were definitely greedy, the best part of the story was how the friend and the whole neighborhood worked together to help this family be able to afford to buy this house. It’s truly impressive!

I especially love how the one neighbor hammed it up when a potential buyer asked about the parties. He went above and beyond in order to try to talk the guy out of wanting to buy the place. I’m assuming that’s still the brave buyer who made an offer at the end of the story, so I guess the neighbor’s tale didn’t exactly work. Still, the effort was admirable.

I’m glad the family got to buy the house. If there’s one lesson they hopefully learned, it’s to always get it in writing! If they hadn’t had such a wonderful friend who went out of the way to help them sabotage the open house, they never would’ve been able to afford the house. They were really lucky.