Home report valuation (Scotland)

[Fedupofallthemud]

Hi
We will soon be trying to sell our house and its being valued next week by surveyor doing the Home report (in Scotland)
When it's been valued in the past they have always said there's little comparable in the area, partly because no-one ever moved, so have tended to value it a bit lower than we think it should be.
However in the past couple of years quite a few of our neighbours have moved AND some more houses have been built in this area, some in a very similar style to this one. (It's quite a unique property with lots of desirable features and in a rural location with not too many houses)

I've been looking at sold prices of all of these on ROS website and it would seem to confirm what we thought about being undervalued.

My question is whether it's a good idea to email the surveyor with details of comparable properties before he does his survey next week? I think if we wait till his done his valuation there's little hope of him increasing it.

Anyone else done this?? Has it helped?

TIA!!

Hopeful bump

Yes - do that they should be aware but they need as much info as possible.

Ok good thanks. I'm wary of pissing them off by doing this but it's preferable to being undervalued! I'll just try to word it carefully so as not to put their back up!

We did that and they put the valuation up. Worth asking!

I am a Scottish EA and I'd be horrified if a surveyor didn't know his area well enough to value it without the input of others. I'd seriously look at appointing a better surveyor. If they can't put a value on the house what else can't they do.

Won't the surveyor have access to all the sold price info?

Im sure there is a rule that even if you do get it revalued again you still have to keep the original valuation in. Id double check that with your solicitor.

It's not been valued yet, surveyor is coming next week. I don't have good experiences with surveyors and I'm not convinced how hard they would look for similar properties to base the valuation on. I think they will just look at previous valuation and base it on that, not taking into account the changes in the area. It's a tricky area, surveyor will be from nearest city and won't necessarily be aware of specific local factors including things that have changed/improved recently

When we remortgaged a couple of years ago one surveyor decided it was a new build because we'd built an extension and consequently the amount we could borrow was reduced (btl). We then had to apply for another mortgage who decided it was worth 50k less!! Finally a 3rd surveyor came up with a sensible valuation and we got the mortgage but all that mucking about with surveys and mortgage applications cost us over £1k and a lot of time and stress. Consequently our trust in surveyors is somewhat reduced.

After this our neighbours house was valued at 50% more than ours for only a slightly bigger house (like 20m2!!)

So I'm a bit dubious!

missstein is there some kind of register with all the valuations? If yes do they look at valuations of neighbouring properties too??

surveyor will have access to all sold properties, what their asking price was and what they sold for, and properties currently on the market which they will definitely take into account. Certainly surveyors in my area do, and one we tend to use is usually spot on with their valuations. We did previously use a surveyor who tended to value on the high side (imo) and whilst these made the sellers happy it usually either meant far fewer viewers (people didnt think it was worth the price) and being far longer on the market than other properties before usually selling for much less than valuation (pita for Executries). I have had one case of seller not happy with valuation (imo surveyor was spot on seller was greedy) and surveyor agreed to up valuation based on spurious reason (imagine something like agreed to add value of garden ornament) and seller put on market at that price. Cue little to no viewers and when offer came in it was roughly 10% less than what the surveyor had originally valued at which was roughly in line with most offers for houses at that time. But was obviously a lot less than what Sellers thought house was valued at. They refused, 2 years later they sell it at less that what was originally offered due to shitty housing market. So please be realistic.

Doesn't hirt to give them the info. They so also provide a draft. When we got ours they said there wasn't mch recently comparable, but one almost identical happened to go on the week before valued at more than ours. At firs he said he would ignore it as a valuation as it'd kot sold yet so could be artificially high, but it sold the day after the survey so they bumped up our valuation. I have known others to get their surveyor to increase the valuation too, by presenting information on other properties.

When you have had it valued before did they actuallyvisit or was it just for the mortgage renewal? That make a difference too as they just look at the average property prices in the area and calculate roughly what your is worth. When you sell they look in more detail at the property and consider unique qualities, level of decoration etc. So it is usually more accurate.

Sorry- should have proof read that. I'm not wearing my glasses. Hope it makes sense!

Thanks for that, it's good to know we are not doing the wrong thing!
We definitely don't want it valued too high, just in line with recent comparable sales in a recovering market (locally)