Drive-by mortgage valuation survey - surely not??!

[narmada]

In process of buying our first house. We are lucky in that we have a large deposit so are borrowing just over half the house's current value by way of mortgage.

Our mortgage broker contacted us to say that a drive by valuation survey has now been booked and mortgage agreed subject to valuation - yay, thought we'd never get there.

But..... do they REALLY just drive past the house to check it's standing and as described (e.g., 3 bed semi) ???! We have to pay them several hundreds of pounds for this - seems nutso to me. Aren't they interested from a surety point of view in whether it's about to slide into a loam pit/ rotting from the inside out/ completely burnt out inside??!

If you are putting up half the money all they need to know is that the bricks and mortar are there and if you default the property will achieve what they have lent you

Oh well, it would def achieve that. Guess I'm just irked that we have to pay a valuation fee for such little work on their part!

I used to work for a suveryor and it's pretty common, especially for houses that are surrounded by lots of similar houses built at a similar time.

They probably took a photo of it which accounts for some of the fee