Cara, a real-estate lawyer in Rhode Island, was surprised by gazump, meaning to cheat a home buyer at the last minute, often by raising the price just before the contract is signed. The word turns up in the United States in the 1920s, apparently with Yiddish roots, and first meant something like a rascal, scoundrel, swindler, or cheat. It later faded here, then reappeared in British English in the 1970s for a particular real estate swindle or last-minute switcheroo. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “What Does “Gazump” Mean in a Real Estate Deal?”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, Martha and Grant. This is Cara from the smallest state with the biggest name.
Ooh, the smallest state with the biggest name.
Delaware.
Is it Rhode Island?
Rhode Island.
Rhode Island.
Grant.
What, it’s like one letter different, one letter less, right?
-huh.
Or fewer.
Don’t get us started on that.
-oh.
So what’s that?
I subscribe to the word of the day from dictionary.com.
Okay, yeah.
And recently their word was one that I had never heard before, and I’m curious about its origin.
And even the dictionary.com entry said the origin was unknown.
So the word is gazump, and that’s G-A-Z-U-M-P.
And the website says it means to swindle a home buyer by raising the price just before the contract is about to be signed.
Ooh.
So I’ve been a lawyer for 15 years, and I primarily practice in real estate law.
And I have never heard of this before.
Aha.
The practice or the word?
The word.
You would never participate in anything so underhanded, would you?
No.
No, absolutely not.
People from Rhode Island have pure morals.
Kara is not a gazumper or a gazumpstress.
Gazump.
What a great word, gazump.
A gazumptress.
Gazumptress?
Nice.
And I asked some of my colleagues, too, and nobody has ever heard of this word.
And it certainly does not sound Latin.
No.
No, the Z gives it away, right?
Yeah.
So I’m thinking, well, maybe there’s a rogue employee at dictionary.com playing practical jokes and just making up words.
On the editor named Mr. Gazump.
That’s it.
Well, you know, just as a small tangent, dictionaries do sometimes make up fake words to find out when their material is being stolen by competitors.
But this is not one of those cases.
No?
No.
I have two reasons why you probably have never heard of this word before.
One, it’s primarily used in Britain, Great Britain.
Two, it supposedly has Yiddish roots.
And so if you’re not a Yiddish speaker or don’t come from Yiddish speakers, it might not sound familiar.
Most Yiddish speakers are people who have it in their family or might say, oh, yeah, that sounds vaguely Yiddish to me.
And so it dates back to about the 1920s, and it’s transformed a bit over time.
In the beginning, it was often used to mean just kind of a rascal or a scoundrel and a swindler, and then eventually more or less fixed for a couple decades to mean to swindle or to cheat.
And then somewhere by about the 1970s, it was borrowed into British English to mean this particular cheat, this particular way of when a deal is almost about to be struck.
One of two things happens.
Either the seller, at the moment of signing, when the keys are about to be handed over, or all the paperwork’s about to be done, says, oh, you know, I forgot that actually all those trees in the yard are worth a lot more than I thought, and so it’s going to cost you another $20,000, right?
And that’s gazumping.
At the last minute when somebody’s like, their hopes are set on it, they think the deal is done, and they’re so committed to the transaction that the cheat who’s selling the place knows that they can get in there and take them for a little bit more.
Oh, and then they say, oi gazump!
No, they don’t.
But the other version of gazump, which can apply to any kind of transaction where there’s some kind of switcheroo at the last minute, where it’s not what you thought.
For example, in real estate, for example, if you’re buying any one of a number of condos in a building and you think that it’s the condo on the fourth floor that’s got the views, but it actually turns out it’s the one on the fifth floor that’s facing the other direction that doesn’t have the views.
And at the last minute, you’re like, well, wait a second.
This isn’t unit 404.
This is unit 510.
I’m buying 404, right?
That’s a gazump at the last minute to kind of do a little switcheroo, a little cheat there.
So you think it’s like when you are buying a car and at the last second they’re putting all these add-ons and you really want that car?
It’s that kind of thing.
They don’t use it in the car industry.
No, they don’t.
That’s interesting that they don’t.
It’s strictly real estate.
And what’s really interesting, Cara, is that it started out as an American word well through the 20s and into the 30s.
And it kind of dies out.
And then in the 70s, it just pops up in British English.
In Britain.
Yeah.
And the thing is like the etymological history is clear enough that we’re pretty sure this is the same word.
But it’s a great detective work you have to do to find this stuff out.
Wow.
Yeah.
Very interesting.
I could have sworn it was made up.
I’m going to use it in my next closing and see what happens.
That’s a hand-waving.
Let us know how that goes, okay, Cara?
I will.
I will.
Thanks for calling, Cara.
Okay.
Thank you, guys.
Have a great time.
Bye-bye.
All right.
Bye-bye.
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