Hello tky_g, If you forfeit something, you lose it because you did or didn't do something. So in this situation, people paid a deposit on a flat but didn't proceed with the sale so they lost their deposit. The 1000 hopeful buyers are people who hope to buy one of these four flats that are put up for sale again (resale) Hope this helps Bob

Yes. So what happened is there were four flats which the previous residents stopped paying for, so now they are up for sale, and about 1000 people lined up to try to buy them. These flats must be in a very sought after location if so many people want to buy them!

Looking at the grammatical aspect of the two phrases, 1. where four flats that had deposits forfeited ... (original) 2. where four flats that had deposits which were forfeited ... (your paraphrasing) I would say they are similar in a broad sense, but also different in a very important way. (1) is in HAVE + OBJECT + VERB COMPLEMENT structure. This pattern describes something HAPPENING in certain way. (2) is in HAVE + [OBJECT + RELATIVE PRONOUN CLAUSE describing the object], essentially the same as HAVE(possess) + OBJECT. The difference is that sentence-2 doesn't indicate the direct relationship between the verb and the verb complement, which conveys the key idea. That is, (1) is saying that the would-be buyers lost their deposits to the owner of the flats (had them forfeited - an action), whereas (2) just says they possessed deposits and they happened to be forfeited ones. Another example that shows the difference more clearly: 1. I had my car damaged = I had an accident in which my car was damaged. (dynamic action) 2. I had a car which was damaged = I had a car and it happened to be a damaged one. (doesn't involve an action) Here are some different types of the complement in the HAVE + OBJECT + COMPLEMENT pattern. - I'll have my secretary call you. (bare infinitive - making someone do something for you) - He had it coming. (present participle - happening at the moment) - She had her arm broken. (past participle - a resulting state of an action)