When did you get searches done?

[Righty]

I'm a bit confused...my mortgage lender wants to do a valuation before making an offer. Should I wait for the mortgage offer before paying the solicitor for searches? Or will the seller/EA feel like this is delaying the process?

I have no reason to believe the valuation will be a problem or that I won't get a mortgage offer, just not sure on process. Thanks for any thoughts!

Searches can take quite long - mine was 2 weeks but I heard others waited up to 2 months, so I think you should get it done early. Do you know roughly how long your mortgage application will take? If it's just 1 week then probably ok to wait, but if longer I think people will be rather annoyed.

Thanks, I think the bank is doing the valuation in about 3 weeks, so it sounds like I should pay for the searches now then!