HAVE you recently flown 13 hours to Britain, spent days racing from one estate agent to another - looked at 37 different properties, eventually found the one you really liked, had your offer accepted by the vendor, organised the letting, instructed your lawyer and surveyor and returned home, only to learn that the vendor has since sold the property to someone else.
This is the old phenomenon called ''gazumping'' - when the deal has been agreed but, before legally binding contracts are signed, your vendor has sold to another buyer who came up with a higher offer.
Gazumping was almost forgotten during the property slump when a buyer was treated as a valued customer.
Now, the market has come alive again, with prices expected to rise and a shortage of property, especially newly built houses and flats, we can expect more disappointed and frustrated investors unless some basic preparations are made.
In Britain, neither the buyer nor the seller has any legal commitment until contracts are exchanged, regardless of how much has been spent by either party, whether in legal or surveyors' fees or even airline tickets.
However, recent case law has given the possibility of some protection to buyers in the form of a ''lock-out'' agreement which normally involves a commitment from the seller not to sell to anyone else for a period of, say, two weeks.
This does not give you an option, nor does it prevent the vendor from seeking to hike the price before exchange. It does, however, ''lock out'' others from actually buying during the agreed period.