Menu

Subscribe Now

Unlimited access >

Menu

Horse selling etiquette - thoughts?

Off Course
, , ,
#41

[QUOTE=rjanyk;8037590]
If the seller wanted to have the horse gone so quickly, wouldn’t they have offered the buyer an opportunity to see the horse during the first two days when the original buyer had gone to look at the horse, but was still ‘making up their mind’, and had not placed a deposit?

Would it not be more beneficial to the seller to allow others to view the horse, even say they are interested, then still honour the appointment scheduled, and then if two parties are interested, it would go to the highest offer?[/QUOTE]

No, that is a slimey tactic to ensure a bidding war, and as a seller, you would be risking both parties saying “screw you, I don’t have to deal with this - there are other horses available!” (and rightfully so!)
Here’s a different take on this - I was recently in a similar position, and I almost lost a sale to a perfectly good buyer because I was trying to be “nice” and “courteous”.

I had a horse for sale last fall. Buyer A contacted me first, we emailed back and forth, finally talked on the phone (conference call with her coach), and we really hit it off - I had a really, super good feeling about both of them. I was really excited about the potential match. We left off with “ok, we are very interested, we are going to talk logistics and flights and we’ll get back to you asap” (Buyer A was 5 hours away). They ask if I have had any other serious interest, and I reply honestly saying one person (they will be Buyer B) has expressed interest in coming to try him but it was one email over 2 weeks prior and I haven’t heard back from them since.

Meanwhile, a couple of days go by, and Buyer B (well, trainer for Buyer B) contacts me. Wants to come see the horse. Asks if 2 days from then is acceptable, I say yes. Buyer B’s trainer comes, tries horse, really likes him, says they will be in touch to set up another trial ride, this time Buyer B herself. Great, awesome. :slight_smile:

A few days go by and I hear back from Buyer A, they have booked a plane ticket and are coming out in a week to try the horse, accompanied by coach and friend. They come, I pick them up at airport, they try horse, they love him, but unfortunately due to weather the sandring is flooded so they are unable to ride him outside, and the arena is half taken up by hay so they are only able to see him go in a 20 m circle, pretty much.
Next day I get email from Buyer A saying they loved him but really do want to see him move out a bit more and ride him outside (fair enough), so they will be in touch about another flight/trip up - here’s the clincher: Buyer A then asks me to please PLEASE let her know before accepting any offers on the horse so that she can possibly make arrangements for a non-refundable deposit or a quicker flight or something. I promise to do so.

Another couple of days go by, Buyer B’s trainer emails me and sets up a time for Buyer B to come try horse. They come, they love him, they say they’ll be in touch. I get a CALL (things might have been less awkward if they had emailed) from Buyer B’s trainer saying “She loves the horse, she wants to have him vetted - if he passes she’s fine with paying full asking price”.

So then, have to awkwardly say “oh, wow, gee, that’s wonderful… but before I can accept, I have to make one phone call, I sort of gave first right of refusal to someone else…”

Buyer B trainer: “Um… you WHAT?”
Me: “I am SO sorry… it probably won’t change anything, I highly doubt she’ll be willing to make a decision right away, I’m sure you will get the horse, but I made a promise…”
Buyer B trainer: (coldly) “Look, if we had known someone else had first dibs we wouldn’t have bothered coming out to see him.”
Me: (apologizing profusely and feeling like a total HEEL bla bla bla…)

In the end, I got a hold of Buyer A, who was extremely disappointed but simply wasn’t comfortable making any kind of decision without trying him again first, which I totally understood, and I was able to call Buyer B back and tell her “the horse is yours” within 2 hours.

It just so happened that Buyer B and her trainer had been shopping for 7 months, all over the province, and were probably sick and tired of trying horses, and that may be the ONLY reason the trainer didn’t tell me to “f off” and that they would keep looking.

I will not make that mistake again. I was too worried about hurt feelings and trying to be nice to everyone, when in the end, it’s about whoever is able to come see the horse and offer the $$ first (assuming both are suitable buyers, which Buyer B definitely was, super nice lady!).

So, in a long-winded bu highly relevant answer to your question - NO, the seller absolutely did not owe the person with the appt ANYthing other than the courtesy call they did in fact make. End of story.

#42

You had not thought of a deposit but suddenly you know some person who looked at the horse before you did not put a deposit on it?

[QUOTE=rjanyk;8037590]
Would it not be more beneficial to the seller to allow others to view the horse, even say they are interested, then still honoour the appointment scheduled, and then if two parties are interested, it would go to the highest offer?[/QUOTE]
Selling something you are wrong no matter what you do when dealing with some people, you are one of those people.

I know I am not going to go into a bidding war with someone over a horse. I look at a horse, I like the horse, I place a deposit while we schedule the PPE and I would find it highly unprofessional for the seller to then come back to me and say ‘I showed the horse to someone else and they are now willing to offer me more, are you willing to go up in price?’.

It is clear that you want this to be answered how you want it to be answered and now amount of people telling you otherwise is going to change your mind.

What you should really do here is appreciate the fact that pretty much everyone (but the OP) agrees on a topic, which is rare here on COTH.

#43

To OP, I understand why you are frustrated and disappointed! It’s irritating to have your heart set on (trying out) a horse and for it to become unavailable.

As the other posters have said, the seller couldn’t be expected to hold the horse for you. And if she HAD called you just to give you various updates on her other buyer visits (why would she do that?), you might have been complaining about sales pressure instead.

But I know why you are venting here. It’s a bummer. Horse shopping sucks.

#44

If it’s meant to be yours, it will work out. If not, it won’t.

#45

[QUOTE=trubandloki;8037661]
You had not thought of a deposit but suddenly you know some person who looked at the horse before you did not put a deposit on it?

Selling something you are wrong no matter what you do when dealing with some people, you are one of those people.

I know I am not going to go into a bidding war with someone over a horse. I look at a horse, I like the horse, I place a deposit while we schedule the PPE and I would find it highly unprofessional for the seller to then come back to me and say ‘I showed the horse to someone else and they are now willing to offer me more, are you willing to go up in price?’.

It is clear that you want this to be answered how you want it to be answered and now amount of people telling you otherwise is going to change your mind.

What you should really do here is appreciate the fact that pretty much everyone (but the OP) agrees on a topic, which is rare here on COTH.[/QUOTE]

If a seller did that to me, I’d walk, no matter how much I liked the horse. If things started getting weird, I would look at it as the universe telling me there was something better elsewhere for me to look at.

Something like that almost happened to me. I put an offer on a horse I really liked. The seller acccepted the offer though their agent (their trainer). when I went to schedule the PPE, that’s when things started to get weird. They didn’t want to wait 2-3 days for my vet to come out. They gave me one day to do it, telling me on a friday that they had a vet lined up who could do the PPE on a saturday. Much negotation took place to try to get them to let me use my choice of vet on the following monday if I could get the vet to rearrange their schedule. The seller’s agent complained about this saying it would not work, that the seller wanted me to use the vet that was available on saturday. The discussion got really weird and the next day they retracted their offer and told me they found someone else who was interested in the horse for the full asking price (approximately $2k more). It was very odd considering the seller was someone who spends easily $50k+ on their horses, judging from what else they had in their string.

I walked away at that point since it was getting too weird. A week later I ended up trying another horse somewhat reluctantly from a different seller. It was only with the encouragement of a couple of very knowledgeable folks that I decided to try the other horse. I ended up purchasing him and have had a lot of success with him, garnering some nice compliments from GHM and some FEI level judges in different judges. In retrospect, I am glad things fell thorugh with the other horse. It hasn’t done much since then and has since dropped off the scene. That could be due to many factors, only one of which could be the horse. Nevertheless, I noticed enough happening on the local circuit, that I’m really, really glad I didn’t buy the othre horse.

so the moral of the story is, if something is getting weird and seems really difficult, maybe it is a good idea to step away and think about the situation. Maybe there is something better elsewhere.

#46

[QUOTE=trubandloki;8037661]

It is clear that you want this to be answered how you want it to be answered and now amount of people telling you otherwise is going to change your mind.

What you should really do here is appreciate the fact that pretty much everyone (but the OP) agrees on a topic, which is rare here on COTH.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=red mares;8037649]
There was nothing rude, shady, abnormal, questionable about what the seller did. There are no straws to grasp here.

Of the 35+ responses, after 1100 views, the very unified consensus is that the seller in your case followed standard practice for selling a horse. Very rarely on COTH do you see such agreement on any issue.[/QUOTE]

Op really wants to play the victim here when it’s really their own darn fault. It’s is extremely rare to have such a consensus on COTH and even so, she still thinks she’s right and the seller is wrong. :no:

#47

[QUOTE=RugBug;8037808]
Op really wants to play the victim here when it’s really their own darn fault. It’s is extremely rare to have such a consensus on COTH and even so, she still thinks she’s right and the seller is wrong. :no:[/QUOTE]

Yeah, if you have just seen a horse and really like it, make a deposit. If you are going to see a horse and think it might have serious potential offer to make a deposit. It’s part of horse selling.

#48

Nothing wrong with what the seller did here. If the horse sells before I can come see it, that is how the ball bounces. Now, I had a seller let me take a whole day off work for a second ride (it was an event horse and I had ridden in the ring and liked him and wanted to school him over a few xc jumps before I said yes) and never told me that they already had an offer and a PPE scheduled for the next day. I thought that was pretty uncool not to let me know they had this PPE scheduled and let me make the decision on whether I would come ride him xc that day or wait until after the other buyer’s PPE in the event the other buyer walked away after the PPE. I stay away from that seller now.

#49

[QUOTE=rjanyk;8037590]
If the seller wanted to have the horse gone so quickly, wouldn’t they have offered the buyer an opportunity to see the horse during the first two days when the original buyer had gone to look at the horse, but was still ‘making up their mind’, and had not placed a deposit?

Would it not be more beneficial to the seller to allow others to view the horse, even say they are interested, then still honoour the appointment scheduled, and then if two parties are interested, it would go to the highest offer?[/QUOTE]

But if a buyer puts down a deposit on the horse, and the terms are to hold him until they vet/have a trainer look at it/whatever then having a different potential buyer come look at the horse would be in bad faith.

There are thousands of horses out there. You learned what you need to do from now on if you are close to an animal and want to see it later than today. The seller did nothing wrong.

#50

I am not looking to be a victim here, or any sympathy. I have been looking for a horse for a while now, I know there are plenty out there for sale. I also never said the seller was being ‘slimy’ in any way. I just thought it was strange that when the interaction began with the seller and the first buyer, the option was there to think on it without a deposit, without the other buyer being offered the opportunity to see the horse (ie. seller is holding horse for interested buyer). I obviously naively thought if that if the seller was ‘holding’ the horse without a deposit to begin with, our appointment would hold up. Nothing sleezy going on, just mixed messages were sent that led to confusion.

#51

[QUOTE=rjanyk;8038168]
I am not looking to be a victim here, or any sympathy. I have been looking for a horse for a while now, I know there are plenty out there for sale. I also never said the seller was being ‘slimy’ in any way. I just thought it was strange that when the interaction began with the seller and the first buyer, the option was there to think on it without a deposit, without the other buyer being offered the opportunity to see the horse (ie. seller is holding horse for interested buyer). I obviously naively thought if that if the seller was ‘holding’ the horse without a deposit to begin with, our appointment would hold up. Nothing sleezy going on, just mixed messages were sent that led to confusion.[/QUOTE]

I don’t understand how you know what the other buyer(s) had agreed to with the seller?

#52

[QUOTE=rjanyk;8038168]
I just thought it was strange that when the interaction began with the seller and the first buyer, the option was there to think on it without a deposit, without the other buyer being offered the opportunity to see the horse (ie. seller is holding horse for interested buyer). [/QUOTE]

What makes you think the seller “held” the horse for the other buyer?

As far as I can tell, you set up an appointment six days out.

Second person calls after but went out sooner. They take a couple days to think about it, but they still make their decision before your scheduled appointment.

That’s not “holding” the horse. That’s still just another buyer seeing the horse sooner and making a decision faster than you were able to.

You scheduled an appointment. That’s ALL. It was not an agreement to pull the horse from the market or a first right of refusal. It was a day and time you could go and see the horse if the horse was still available.

I get that you’re disappointed, but you’re attaching far too many rights/expectations to setting up an appointment that just don’t exist in ordinary sales.

#53

I would tend to agree with everyone on the thread saying the person offering the deposit should get the horse as it is only fair. I do however have a spin off question based on a situation that recently happened to a friend.

Friend was looking for a project horse and found a nice one listed that checked all the boxes of what they were looking for. Horse was listed at an extremely low price so friend decided it was worth taking a gamble based on pics and bloodlines and info provided by owner. Friend offered to purchase horse for the asking price and described their plan for the horse: get it started and see what discipline it would be suitable etc. Owner refused to sell horse without taking video of horse to show friend and asked friend to be patient while she got video and told friend they had first option to purchase horse (seller wouldn’t take any money, and friend had already said they would buy horse without video). Friend gave person a few days to take video and checked in on the status to find out that the person had been pressured by someone else to come look at the horse and that person bought it. In this situation should the friend have tried to pressure the person into selling the horse immediately to them rather than trying to do the nice thing and patiently wait for the video seller insisted on sending?

#54

Sorry, should have been more clear. We could have gone to see the horse in those first couple of days, and would have jumped at the opportunity.

#55

[QUOTE=bambam;8037833]
Nothing wrong with what the seller did here. If the horse sells before I can come see it, that is how the ball bounces. Now, I had a seller let me take a whole day off work for a second ride (it was an event horse and I had ridden in the ring and liked him and wanted to school him over a few xc jumps before I said yes) and never told me that they already had an offer and a PPE scheduled for the next day. I thought that was pretty uncool not to let me know they had this PPE scheduled and let me make the decision on whether I would come ride him xc that day or wait until after the other buyer’s PPE in the event the other buyer walked away after the PPE. I stay away from that seller now.[/QUOTE]

Wow, I don’t know how I’d feel about that as the buyer with an accepted offer. Seller still letting potential back-up buyers do a cross country school on the horse? I think I’d be staying away from that seller, too. I’d worry what was going on with the horse until I could take physical possession.

#56

The first buyer might have been an old owner with a first right of refusal, someone they had made a prior agreement with, a friend or someone at the same barn etc…

Whatever reason they were someone the seller obviously wanted to buy the horse. Maybe the seller even just learned that first come first serve was a better policy from the previous experience!

Either way - Standard horse selling scenario is that the first acceptable (good fit/home/trainer or whatever sometimes factor in) buyer with the money gets the horse.

#57

What Halt Near X said. I don’t understand how you thought the horse was being held for either buyer. What specifically makes you think the horse was held for the other buyer? It appears that the other buyer decided to buy the horse and gave the seller money before you went to see the horse. That is the risk you run when you wait 6 days to go see a horse. Someone else might go look first and decide to buy.

As another example, I had set an appointment to go look at horse. The day before my appointment, a trainer came to try horse and liked it. But, trainer’s student was sick that day and couldn’t come along to try horse. Trainer asked seller to hold horse until their studentn could come try it. Seller said no way, I have another buyer coming to look tomorrow. Not holding horse for anyone. First one to put down a deposit and schedule a vetting gets horse. That is the way it goes 99% of the time. Sellers only hold horses if a deposit is paid. Seller normally only takes deposit if BUYER ASKS if they can pay a desposit to hold horse.

That being said, as a buyer, I would not pay a deposit to hold a horse I have not even laid eyes unless it was 100% refundable if I didn’t like the horse. Too many times, you think you are going to love the horse and then you go and ride it…turns out NOT to be what you are looking for after all. And as a seller, what is the point of taking a refundable deposit?

#58

[QUOTE=rjanyk;8038296]
Sorry, should have been more clear. We could have gone to see the horse in those first couple of days, and would have jumped at the opportunity.[/QUOTE]

Lesson learned for you - go see the horse sooner, rather than later, if you have your heart set on that horse.

#59

Maybe I missed it, but did OP say the other buyer called after her? (Not that it matters) Curious how the OP would know, since it doesn’t seem she asked the first time she called if anyone else was looking at it?

#60

[QUOTE=rjanyk;8038296]
Sorry, should have been more clear. We could have gone to see the horse in those first couple of days, and would have jumped at the opportunity.[/QUOTE]

Right, but you said your trainer could not make it, so you could not go. You said 6 days was the soonest you could make it- is that not the case now?

Get your Digital Subscription here - only $21.95 / year

Subscribe here
See gift options

Sign up to our monthly newsletter!

By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.

Copyright © 2023 The Chronicle of the Horse