gazump

To swindle; to extort.

To raise the selling price of something (especially property) after previously agreeing to a lower one.

If one believes that morality plays no part in such a transaction, and that the law is all that prevails, then I believe society is the poorer. Clearly no surveyor refuses to act for a client who gazumps — but while the practice is legal it can hardly be described as moral, and the position of the surveyor is far from clear.

During the early 1970s however in a period of rapidly increasing house prices it came to appear unfavourable to buyers since it allowed the seller to ‘gazump’, that is to refuse to sign the formal contract unless the buyer would agree to an increased price.

To buy a property by bidding more than the price of an existing, accepted offer.

I can disclose that Mrs Blair had an offer of £2,765,000 accepted on a five-storey Georgian house in a fashionable area of central London, which she planned to give to daughter Kathryn.¶ However, actress Talulah Riley, 31, who played spoiled Annabelle Fritton in two St Trinian’s films, gazumped her with an offer of £3 million — a staggering £235,000 more than the asking price.

We are first-time buyers going through the process of buying our first home in London. We had previously tried three years ago and were gazumped twice. We lost nearly £4,000 to surveyors and solicitors with no property to show for it at the end.

To trump or preempt; to reap the benefit underhandedly from a situation that someone else has worked to create.

The tactic was to gazump the Labour Party and the FOL by a major restructuring of the tax system.

Just as Whymper effectively gazumps Mr Stone in taking credit for the Knights Companion scheme for ambitious ends, so too does this dangerous, multicultural, overcrowded version of London seem to be displacing the colonial fantasy of England by the novel's conclusion.

The act of gazumping.

An automobile.

"Phoney" Thorpe, '06, and "Shorty" Winchester, '01, have been driving their "90 HP Gazumps" through the wilds of New Jersey, but otherwise keeping on the job.

Go out and hire the finest gazump that ever burned benzine.

A politician who takes bribes.

This year's crop of "nite bloomin' wood-be mayors" includes such famous gazumps as Mac Hoyne, Tom Carey, Barney Mullaney, possibly Carter H., Wilhelm Thompson, and the devil knows who else.

Go fifty-fifty. / If they nail you call in a mouthpiece. / Fix it, you gazump, you slant-head, fix it. / Feed 'em. …