Home Survey countrywide

[Honeybu]

Hi All,
would appreciate any advice I can get. Currently in a process to buy a house, offer accepted, mortgage accepted, putting in good deposit about 40%.

My mortgage is with Nationwide and I have paid to nationwide for level 2 RIC survey. Nationwide will be using countrywide surveyor and I have read their reviews and it seem they have dissatisfied a lot of customers, so I’m not happy with countrywide doing the level 2 home survey.

what are my options?

do I need to ask the bank permission to find my own surveyor to do one in addition to the bank survey?

can I ask the bank to not use countrywide?

You can ask Nationwide to do just their basic valuation which is free.

You can then instruct your own surveyor & negotiate with them the type of survey you want. They will then give you a price.

Have you paid Nationwide yet for the survey ?

Edit.

Sorry, just seen that you've paid Nationwide already. Did you go through a broker or did you deal direct with Nationwide ? You may be able to ask for your money back & tell them that you are sourcing the survey yourself.

This

Just ask to change to the free valuation and then instruct your own surveyor. Do you research- there are a lot of shit ones out there.

I’m using a broker, he never mentioned the free basic valuation. I didn’t even know I could decline the nationwide doing the homebuyer survey and for me to source my own survey.

I will ask the question if nationwide can do their basic one only.

I think now the option I have is let countrywide do one and I also do one aswell independently if I’m even allowed? I mentioned this to the broker but he doesn’t seem to want me to do that saying “level 2 is the same everywhere and I be wasting money when I have already paid for it via nationwide”

I will caveat that I am a mortgage broker & not a surveyor so I may be getting the names/terms wrong.

There are 3 levels of valuation/survey that are used by lenders.

Level 1 - Basic valuation. This is for the lender's use only. It used to cost around £100-£150 but over the past 10-15 years has come to be free.

Level 2 - Homebuyers Report. Conducted by the valuer doing the Basic valuation & will cost around £250-£500, depending on value of property. Probably only a few pages long and will tell you if there are any major issues with the property.

Level 3 - Full structural survey. Cost around £1k and again conducted by the valuer doing the Basic valuation. In depth report detailing any areas of concern & graded red, amber & green.

As a broker these are generally at the end of the application form when keying in an application online. It will ask what level of valuation/survey is required & anything above Level 1 will usually require payment to be made there & then (by debit/credit card) and application cant generally be processed further until it is. 9 times out of 10 my client has said that they will organise their own surveyor so I just click on Basic Valuation & application is finished.

@Honeybu . To answer your questions -

Yes, you can ask Nationwide to just conduct their Basic valuation & you will look into sourcing your own survey. Nationwide will not mind or care. Most clients take this option. Whether you can now get your money back is a different subject. I would expect so but no idea of the process.

Btw......how old is the property ? That might determine what level of survey to go for.