Mortgage Valuation Survey

[MrsHarford]

Does anyone know if, when a mortgage valuation survey is carried out the surveyor is really doing it as a neutral exercise and providing a fair market value for the property. E.g. would they be a better reflection on value than an estate agents or are they simply confirming that with the level of your offer and the cushion of your deposit the bank isn't going lose money in the case of repossession? The reason I ask is that we had a valuation survey carried out that suspiciously came back with a value exactly that of our offer. We're not sure that the property is actually worth that amount and have had conflicting info from EAs and also conflicting indicators from other property recently sold in the area (nothing exactly equivalent). Love the house but don't want to overpay for it...

[LIZS]

They are working for the lender and will really either confirm that it is a fair price to offer or highlight any significant problems in order that the lender would not be over exposed to risk if you default and the property has to be sold. If you want a less partial valuation employ a surveyor yourself.

[indiegrrl]

What LIZS says. Mate of mine does these all the time, he's a surveyor who spends half his life working for buyers and half working for the mortgage companies. He absolutely confirms that his job for the latter is to confirm that giving out the mortgage amount you've asked them for is not going to be a dead loss for them.

[nocake]

A valuation survey will do nothing except confirm that the house is worth what you're paying for it, or not. Many of them are done without the valuer even getting out of the car so don't expect much.

If the valuation comes out a exactly what you're paying for the house then you can be confident that the house is worth that much. Banks are very conservative these days so they tend to value low.

[austenozzy]

As the others say, it's a rubber-stamping by a surveyor to say the house is worth what is stated.

We had one done, and the surveyor actually came in and had a proper look, which is really unusual! He had a nerdy interest in the really old beams in the loft (400 years old) and was only up there from a personal interest rather than on behalf of a bank!

[MrsHarford]

Thanks all. I guess that's reassuring (kind of).