Buyers' mortgage declined because of the quirks of our 350 year old house!

[BunnyWilliams]

I'm so frustrated. Our buyers' mortgage (Nationwide) was declined today pending a specialist review. The surveyor came yesterday.

He has cited that the house has 'structural issues' and had based this upon the fact that our couldn't-be-more-solid stone cottage has sloping floors in one bedroom. It's a bloody 1730 cottage for goodness sake!!!! Every house in the country of a certain age has wonky walls and floors! I'm fuming! Now he wants them to get a structural engineers report and goodness knows whether they will, or whether it will agree with this ridiculous assumption.

They have also downvalued the house to 420k (it was valued at 475k and we accepted 448k after a reduction to 450). Our agents agree it's laughable and not even remotely in line with what similar houses have sold for recently. Even Nationwide's own pricing index values it at a minimum of 440!

Is there anything we can do?! I feel completely helpless. We didn't have an issue getting a mortgage at all for this house (4 years ago) and neither did any of the people that came before us. The surveyor came from out of area and clearly doesn't understand the normalcies of a cottage. Every blooming house in our village would be unmortgageable if that were the case. 😤

I'd get a structural engineers report done. They're very thorough and you can give a copy to a prospective buyer if their mortgage provider is being flaky. The first old house I bought had a small amount of historic movement in the front wall which had been rectified by a wall tie, the movement was measured and recorded in the SE's report (paid for by the vendor.) When I came to sell it 12 years layer, it was flagged up as 'ongoing movement' by the potential buyer's mortgage provider and they were digging their heels in. It was absolute nonsense. I paid for a SE report which gave the exact same measurement as the first report had and the sale went through.

It’s a buyers market. You’re approaching the situation like you have control and power to find someone else. You may not. The valuation may be accurate.

What % increase have you applied to your purchase price from 4 years ago? 2021 was pretty peak, are you sure you’re pricing accurately?

You said most of your village is old and all the houses are the same. But yours is the only old house on the market?

Im not suggesting you drop by £30k but you definitely have to meet somewhere in the middle here. From what you’ve said, I strongly feel you’re overvaluing your house.

The property I was trying to buy was valued at zero by the bank’s valuer and they refused to lend on it. There’s only a tiny handful of companies that do valuations for the whole country, so even getting another lender is likely to still get you the same valuer.

Christ, ours was built in 1690 and there's not one straight wall or doorway in the entire gaff!

You should challenge that report, OP. It sounds ridiculous.

When buying our previous house we initially went with Nationwide and they massively down valued the property. We were happy with the price that we had offered, it was reasonable and in line with other houses in the area and the market at the time.

From looking online we could see that the surveyors (Countrywide I think) used by Nationwide were known for down valuing, so we went to a broker who could advise on a different lender with different surveyors. The valuation came back as expected and we bought the house (and sold recently with no problems at all).

If your buyers love the house would they be open to looking for a different lender?

Both my DDs have fairly recently bought properties using Nationwide as the lender, because they offered a higher loan to salary ratio than anyone else, which they needed to get on the ladder at all. Both had issues with NW making a fuss about what they would lend on, with the DD who was buying a London flat having a mortgage refused for two (unremarkable) flats before they agreed to lend on the third one she offered on. I think they are very risk averse and don’t try to understand local markets.

Not all mortgage providers understand or are happy to provide a mortgage for a non standard construction house hundred of years old, same with house insurance.
There will be mortgage providers out there that understand older houses and are more willing to lend, however they may not always be the most competitive mortgage or lowest interest rate on offer.
I don't think there is much you can do, the ball is the the buyers court, either they apply to a different mortgage lender, a mortgage broker should know the best lenders for old (listed?) properties.
The valuation must be gutting as you have clearly already accepted a significant drop in price already , perhaps the structural survey will prove it is sound and then they will adjust the valuation?
Old houses often have wonky sloping floors!
It depends on how much your buyers want the house and if you are prepared to compromise at all.
I don't think it necessarily will follow that all mortgage providers will have the same response.

How on earth could you know we're overvaluing our house? That's absurd. We had multiple valuations when going to market. They all came in within the same range. Not one was this low. Are you saying that a surveyor from out of area knows more than all our local agents put together?

There are other houses on the market in our village but ours is a 5 bed and they are 2 or 3, so not what our buyers would be looking at.

That's who it was!! Countrywide!

I can't find the details now but apparently Nationwide have added an additional term to their mortgages, which is already covered by legislation but is proving difficult for conveyancers.

Advise your buyers to apply the existing (your) mortgage lender.

I'm going to speak to our mortgage advisor tomorrow, who is also a business network friend and see if she thinks she could help.
If our buyers are willing to go through her to look at better lenders, we'd be happy to pay the broker fee for them. It's worth a try?

We made a complaint about our mortgage valuer when we were refinancing. He was downgrading/negative on everything. Comparables were not even near our house even tho there were many comps on same street. He highlighted a terrible “park” we have never been to as an open space for enjoyment where there is a well known popular park much closer. Never mentioned the local selling points. The house was recently completely renovated and literally every wire and fittings new & good quality, architect build, but his comps were smaller homes and out of date. He valued the house much much less than bank had previously valued it ! So we couldn’t actually get refinanced mortgage.

We went thru report, correcting it all and giving realistic comps. They sent someone else who basically used what I wrote and told us they wouldn’t be working with him.

i wonder if he’s the guy at Nationwide now!!!

In my experience with the whole mortgage thing, Nationwide is very “conservative” and risk adverse. We ended up with a different bank based on the mortgage advisor’s recommendation. Maybe suggest your buyer to look at other lenders? They seem keen to get the sale moving.

If I was your buyer I would think this was a reasonable proposition. It depends on your buyers really. If they're level headed and confident that the price agreed is fair and realistic it seems sensible.

Or they could be like some posters on this thread who I presume would see a lower valuation as a certainty of the house's actual value, rather than an indication of that lenders risk appetite. Or chancers that see it as a way to try and pay less.

Bank valuations are quite difficult to challenge. Nationwide massively downvalued our last house, wouldn’t budge, so we changed providers who valued it in line with our original offer. I’d be getting your agents to suggest moving lender, and also utilising a broker who can suggest a lender likely to accept a non typical construction house (ie something with a few quirks)

You seem to take joy in using the word cretin. Says a lot about you.

@BunnyWilliams it al depends how desperate you are to sell tbh. If you are not desperate and are in a buyers market, I'd hold fire for a bit

This happened to us, we were buying the cottage we lived in, valued way under so affected the mortgage. Broker told us not to maintain our offer due to valuation. Landlord went nuts and accused us of all sorts but our hands were tied. In the end we had to back out as landlord would not come down at all from original agreed sale price (which had been plucked out of thin air by him).

I am glad we didn't buy it - got a much nicer house. Half of it ended up falling down during renovation work.

Mortgage providers are really, really risk averse in the last couple of years. We nearly lost our mortgage last year mid-purchase for something ridiculous at the eleventh hour. Most stressful clusterfuck of a 36-hour time period I've ever experienced. It was like talking to a brick wall, over and over. We went to a mortgage broker as a plan B, knowing any other provider would probably raise some crazy at the last minute too, if we got deal with them. We also lost two buyers in quick succession for our place. Because their mortgage providers wanted more info from us/them at the last hurdle.

Nationwide is very conservative with their valuations, we had the same issue as your buyers and PPs. We were happy with our offer on the house, thought it was reasonable, clearly sellers did too as they happily accepted. Nationwide then valued it at £30k less - which we just couldn't make up with deposit. When we spoke to our mortgage advisor about it, she said another client offered on a property on for £650k, got their offer accepted at £610k... but Nationwide valued it at £580k!

We really loved this house though so tried a second mortgage provider and they valued it bang on what we offered. If your buyers really don't want to let your house go, I'd definitely suggest to them to get a second valuation done.

Your buyers need to approach a mortgage company that are used to historic buildings.
They will then use a surveyor that is also used to historic buildings.

Suggest they could call SPAB who might have a list of appropriate companies.

Is this to do with your EPC
see article attached

We re going to have this problem as ours dates from 1430 and is a timber wattle and daub construction. So technically they can’t even do an epc calculation as there isn’t one for our construction type.

If this is the issue then perhaps look at your construction type and the epc calculation. You may find they haven’t used an accurate calculation method.

It's a bloody 1730 cottage for goodness sake!!!!

I live in a new build with all mod cons. No way ever I would buy a house over 400 hundreds years old.

Sorry you're going through this OP.

I feel like your EAs should be advising your buyers to try switching to a different Lender, they will then use a different surveyor for the valuation.

However a 2nd survey will cost them money so it would be reasonable for you to split the cost with them of the 2nd survey, in my opinion. Or possibly even pay all of it if that is what they request.