Are surveys still happening?

[ellie2201]

We are in the middle of selling our house. Buyers are keen to proceed apparently but I wondered if surveys are still happening or are they being delayed until lockdown is over? Have you had one done recently?

I work for a district council and deal with the sale of Right to Buy properties to tenants. We have suspended new instructions and had to halt any where the surveyor hadn't been out, as the firm we use aren't carrying out surveys at present. Though I understand the government guidance is they could be carried out on empty unoccupied properties.

No, they are on hold. I can’t see them resuming until the lockdown is significant relaxed. Entirely understandable, but no less frustrating (buyer here).

Depends on the lender.
Bank of Ireland, nationwide and Santander and some others (not Halifax at the moment) are doing desk top valuations.
I know of 4 cases where a mortgage application has been submitted and gone to offer all within the last 7 working days.

They aren’t all on hold at all. We and our vendor had a survey carried out this week. Not in the same county either.

There are rules, owners had to be out of the property and obviously no symptoms of Covid and not shielded.

It depends. We're buying and we have a surveyor who will happily do our building survey. But our lender won't carry out the valuation survey even though the property is empty. So some are happening, but not others! infuriating.

Ok thanks. Interesting! Our buyers seem still very keen and are pushing for end of May completion but it seems very unrealistic to me. I’m fully expecting the whole thing to collapse... Time will tell.

I thought it would be impossible but our survey is now booked in for next Thursday. I think it depends on the surveyor, the policy at our one is that they can do it with gloves etc if the owners can vacate the property for the duration of the inspection. You can always ask...