Survey before or after mortgage offer?

[Jaggerdagger]

Hi guys, I asked another tjer question recently and you were all really helpful.

We are FTBs and have sent off the mortgage application 3 weeks ago for a 3 bed semi.

We are hoping to hear back about the mortgage application/valuation any time soon, but our question is whether we should go ahead and book a survey before or after the application is accepted? Thank you!!

Not nationwide but HSBC. We heard yesterday so exactly two weeks from application. Approved pending valuation!

The valuation isn't until Thursday though so I don't know how long after that it'll take

Still waiting. 4 weeks and 5 days and counting. Complete torture!

@Jaggerdagger absolutely, I'm losing my mind over Nationwide and how slow they are at this point.

An update since I last posted - we were subsequently asked for an additional bank statement at the beginning of last week and our MB told us that meant yet another week long wait... but that we would definitely hear early this week. After that happened I finally just decided to book our house survey which we had held off on up to then for all the reasons people recommend. Our thinking was that we had passed all the checks we were most worried around (credit and valuation), we were into our 4th week of waiting and there was also a 10 day window before the earliest survey appointment anyway. The cancellation fee is quite small should anything go wrong and we need to not go ahead - and that's valid up to the day itself. It's this Wednesday so I'm praying the offer comes through before then like we have been promised.

@housebuy2022 Yes we are the same - requested 2 more documents at the end of last week. Service times now 11 days, so with all the bank holidays, we are now probably looking at mid June (a minimum of 7 weeks waiting time from start to finish!). I'm very tempted to book my survey too. I'll email to ask them what the cancellation fee is. Good idea! Crossing my fingers for you 🤞

Is your purchase chain free? I was advised to wait for the chain to complete before instructing a survey, in case the vendor decided to stay/took too long to find somewhere.

@Salome61 Yes sorry should have said - we are chain free (FTB) and our seller is chain free.

@Jaggerdagger Fingers crossed for you too!

That's great. My friend paid for her survey, then the vendor said she couldn't find anywhere as nice as her house, and withdrew the house from sale. Good luck!

We are chain free too! Seller is buying a house with no onward chain. So just the two houses in the chain.

Update! We had our mortgage offer through today finally! Hooray! So luckily decision to get survey sorted feels like it was the right one for us. Hope everyone else isn't waiting much longer.