Valuation Survey

[MaryPoppinsPenguins]

Can anyone tell me how long this will take and what they're actually going to do / look at?

(Just working out if I need someone to collect my DD!)

Ours happened in about 10 second when I clicked a button on the web site. Valuation is only for their purposes so if they do go out they might not really look at anything much. They just want to know they can get their money back if they don't get it from you.
I don't think you can accompany any surveyor anyway. We got the next level up and we chatted with him before hand about what we were interested in.

Is this the valuation for the mortgage of someone buying your house?

If it is then the man was literally at our house 10 mins maximum. Had a quick look, upstairs, downstairs and outside and was then done.

When they had a homebuyer report done it was probably about 30-45 mins and he did wonder around quite a lot and spent quite a while writing things down etc. I just watched TV and let him get on with it

If I've got completely the wrong end of the stick here sorry I've not been much help

The survey for someone buying our house... hopefully just ten minutes then!

We've just had the same - I think it was a homebuyer report (we're a flat so full structural wouldn't make sense) and he was here for just under two hours. 2-bed flat.

Their mortgage valuation guy, however, arrived just after the Sainsburys shop and left before I'd finished unpacking it

Sounds like it should be the nice quick one then

I was wondering how does the standard valuation compares with issues discovered at later stage by homebuyers or structural survey?

I mean that lender valued the house at for example £200 000 then homebuyers or structural survey highlighted some work that needs doing i.e. damp or new windows required and estimated work is worth £15 000.

In this case, is the house worth £200k or £185k? I spoke with my mortgage broker and he said that even if some extra work was discovered at later stage the lender valued house at £200k so I should not be very concerned as the surveyor would assume some maintenance and investment will be required.

I just wonder if this is correct, I can see his point as there is no hidden structural issue discovered but then if valuation takes only 10-15min not sure if surveyor is able to estimate anything at all during such a brief inspection.

I think it is like your mortgage broker said. For our house sale the same guy did the mortgage valuation and the homebuyers report for the buyer at the same time. He discovered some non urgent work and suggested they get quotes but it didn't impact his valuation of the property because general maintenance and work is expected on any property.

As a result our buyer asked for £10,000+ off the sale price and we refused (1. Because it was valued at the amount of her original offer regardless of this work and 2. Because her quotes were ridiculous - ours all came in at £3000 maximum)

If it was something serious like subsidence then it might impact the overall valuation of the property, and sometimes a lender will insist on a full structural survey being done before they will release the mortgage so they can check for any larger issues.

Yeah but valuation survey and structural survey were done by two different surveyors so lender does not have a copy of structural survey. However I guess your point is still valid, I mean if there is no significant issue i.e. structural then value of the house is not affected?

Yeah the lender would only see the structural survey if they requested it as a condition of the mortgage.

I wouldn't worry too much as they aren't going to want to risk losing money on a property so I imagine they have a very good idea of what they are looking for if there were any major issues.

However at the end of the day any house purchase is a risk. Even with all the surveys available things can be, and are missed.

Also the house could be perfect but the market may collapse again and its worth 50% of what it was some weeks later. You just never know!