Valuation below offer, anyone has this before?

[Shahlalala]

We put in an offer for a house, all good and mortgage approved. However Countrywide have then come and valued it 10K lower! Nothing untoward in the report regarding the house. The price is only a bit higher than close by properties (new kitchen, bathroom and landscaped garden just done.)

Has anyone else experienced this? They say they’ll look into it, but seem pretty set. The seller won’t lower the price...

Do I just have to let the property go really? I can’t afford the 10K difference.

Yes this happened to us, the valuation was 15k lower than they offer. I challenged it with recent examples and they increased the valuation by 5k. The vendor agreed to reduce the price by 5k as well, so that in the end we paid 5k above the valuation. We were lucky that we could afford it and I'm glad I took the risk, as it was a lovely home in an area where houses don't come on the market so often as people want to stay put.

Are you not putting down a deposit for ten grand? If you intend to stay there a long time it makes no difference really.

The mortgage company will give the mortgage as long as it's not more than the valuation and I didn't think they did 100 percent mortgages any more?

whyohwhyowhydididoit

It must have been really undervalued. I think the op was probably putting down a deposit as well.

The surveyor isn’t acting on your behalf, they are acting in the best interests of the bank. The bank needs to protect its interests just as it would with any loan. They won’t lend more than they are advised is reasonable, even if you want to pay more than the property is valued at.

Please remember, a valuation is exactly that, a valuation, it is not a survey, make sure you get a survey to protect your own interests in the property.

Could it be that the vendors have added the cost of the recent work (kitchen, bathroom, garden) to the price of the house in an attempt to recoup the money they spent and in doing so have made the house too expensive for the area? Phil and Kirsty are always warning against that.

Yes Countrywide are utter arseholes. Valued mine at £60k less than I paid when my fixed rate came up for renewal so I was stuck with my incumbent. The house opposite sold for £60k MORE 4 years later and mine is in better condition. Arseholes.

Also their survey on my PILs house was laughable. There was work done under insurance behind cladding and they advised the buyer not to proceed because they couldn't see the work had been done satisfactorily. But it had been done and signed off by the insurance company!! No one ever knows what's behind cladding but that's as good a guarantee as you'll get!

Not unusual at all. The lender will take the surveyor value into account for lending purposes. This will impact your loan to value. So make sure you can still borrow from the lender.

It’s up to you to negotiate with the vendor and if they won’t change than that’s up to them.

I’m putting a deposit down, but I don’t have an additional 10k to make up the difference.

As someone pointed out the vendor said ‘Well I spent 4K on x, y and z’ .... I was polite but he is an idiot to think that means 4K is accounted for.

I have had to tell him we can’t buy due to the valuation. He will struggle to sell it, but we need to buy quickish, so can’t wait for him to realise this.

Back to house hunting

We would get our own survey as well, but there’s no point trying to progress with this one if they can’t approve the mortgage.

Yes our current house was valued 10 grand less. The vendor wouldn't budge and we needed to move . We still bought it . We had a large deposit though so were still able to borrow what we needed, 7 years on I've no regrets .

It’s up to you to negotiate with the vendor and if they won’t change than that’s up to them

Try doing that when the valuation comes back as £0