Individual pulls off ingenious ploy to help struggling friends buy house from greedy landlords

Gazumping is a notorious practice in the world of real estate, where a seller accepts your offer on a property but then sells it to someone else. u/fibeenn shared a story on Reddit about how they got back at some greedy landlords, teaching them a lesson. This incident of gazumping happened 15 years ago and involved their best friend and her family.

The Reddit user revealed that their best friend, her husband, and their five kids lived in an expensive city and rented an old four-bedroom house for $400 per week. Despite the house being in poor condition, it was all they could afford. "The owner was a nice old lady who was extremely wealthy and very fond of my friend, froze the rent for five years and promised to let them buy the house once they had saved enough to get a loan from the bank. As she had similarly helped other people, they knew they could trust her and so they saved every cent they could," the post stated.

After saving for five years, the old lady passed away shortly after they became financially equipped to buy the house. Since nothing was put down in writing, the new owners stepped in. It was the old lady's four children and they had 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. My friends applied for the loan but to their shock, it was refused," the post continued.

The new owners had raised the property's price by $80,000 without informing the Reddit user's friend and the house was due to be listed in an open house sale within the next seven days. With soaring property prices, the friend and her family would struggle with money and eviction shortly. This was when u/fibeenn started plotting to help their friends get back at the greedy property owners. "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," the Reddit post mentioned.

They decided to make the property look undesirable to potential buyers by cluttering the indoors and even pouring two dozen rotten eggs down the drain to make it smell like sewer gas. The Reddit user and their friend sought help from their neighbors and mutual friends who plotted to make the property look as bad as possible. They set up a barbeque in the neighborhood, heavy-set men arrived on their bikes and a moldy couch was dumped in the front yard of the house opposite too.

Several potential buyers appeared to check the property on the Open Day but left quickly after witnessing the chaos and crowd in front of the house. "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 greedy owners wanted. My friends signed the papers and paid the deposit that day. So when a 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 owner's faces when they found out," the post concluded.

Fellow Reddit users cheered the person for plotting the perfect plan to get back at the greedy landlords. u/Witchy-Poo-21 wrote, "I think the entire world needs more friends like you- the effort you went through is heartwarming. Brilliant." u/ActStunning3285 added, "Reminds me of when banks or corporations would reclaim a struggling family farm and put it up for auction. The whole town of farmers would turn up and the original owner would bid for a penny while everyone else just there silently or bullied the other people bidding into dropping their bid. The farm would go back to the owner. Collective solidarity wins again."