Bank to carry out full building survey Or get done privately?

[cooperbug]

We had our full mortgage application this morning and the bank have offered to carry out a full building survey for £725.

Is it worth getting it via the bank in that will it be as thorough or should we find a private builder surveyor to do it?

What are the advantages and disadvantages? It’s an old Edwardian property which the current owners only had the basic survey done on it when they bought 10 years ago

Back in the summer when I did this, my lender told me that very few of their surveyors were doing level 2/3 surveys because of Covid, which meant the ones that WERE doing it were fully booked up leading to a backlog. Mine took three weeks because of this. My mortgage offer covered the cost of level one so I paid the difference which worked out much cheaper than paying for a separate one.
Ultimately they get subbed out anyway so I don’t see that it’s any more or less thorough

If you get a lender survey and there are issues they will be hyper vigilant and may withhold some of the mortgage funds until you fix any issues. If you arrange your own they won’t see it so it will be up to you to decide the level of work you are comfortable with and what issues you could live with, and whether you renegotiate.

Don’t want to use them if it’s going to delay things by up to 3 weeks potentially.

What is the average cost of a buildings surveys do you know?

I actually want them to down value the house to be honest as actually think we are overpaying for it a bit (private sale)

The lender will do a valuation survey regardless but it will probably be remote so they won’t inspect the fabric of the building. They will let you know if you are overpaying due to location etc. We paid £600 for a survey for a 5 bed detached.

Our full structural survey (independent from the bank as they just did a valuation) was £740 for a 3 bed detached. Wait time was 7 weeks! Report took 2 weeks- apparently due to COViD surveyors are only doing one visit per day compared to 2 so wait times are double pre COVID

I believe the cost of the survey is decided by the purchase price. Mine was something like 295 if I sorted it myself, but I paid 155 to ‘top up’ the level one survey my lender was paying for.