Are gentleman's agreements a thing of the past, or did I expect too much?

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Vintagedeputy

Agree that we didn't have a deal, but he did offer it to me and never gave me a chance to purchase it.

I'm curious if you're seeing this as a one-way street or a two-way street.

Suppose he called you to offer the item as agreed, and then said the price was way higher than what you expected. What would you have done? Paid much more than it was worth, or decline to purchase?

If the latter, couldn't he have claimed, as you are now, that he had agreed to sell, and you had agreed to purchase. but now you are backing out of the sale?

That's why I say, since you hadn't agreed on a deal, with terms (price) specified, he didn't renege on anything. I assume you were reserving the right to "renege" if his ask had been too high, right?