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. 😤

Gosh......I had no idea Nationwide and Countrywide undervalued properties. Its good information to know

I hope all goes well, OP

I came across a surveyor years ago now that may have been called Countrywide. It was suggested to me that they might arrive on horseback instead of by car.

For what it's worth, my current house is an 1800's house with wonky floors, interior cracks and the usual damp. We got a mortgage with Santander through no problem.

Even if they were to make the deposit up for the shortfall (which it doesn't seem like they're in a position to do). They're still getting shafted on a higher LTV than they need to with an under valuation.

When I worked in estate agency many, many years ago, it was in a expensive rural town and surrounded by tiny hamlets and villages in the middle of nowhere with ancient properties.

One set of purchasers had had a survey done on a 16th century thatched cottage and their mortgage company got the hump and wouldn't lend. That was until the surveyor said, and I quote, 'You try standing in a field with a straw hat on your head for 500yrs and still look like you're 21'. It still makes me laugh, 30yrs on!

I’ve had similar experiences with Nationwide, they mortgaged my first property for 10 years, when I came to sell the buyer was using Nationwide but they wouldn’t mortgage it as it was on a main road…it had been on this road for 100 years with no traffic difference (if anything an improvement as local industry declined). I was baffled, ended up losing the sale as it was during the Liz Truss aftermath. I think they get twitchy when there is recession chat.

if they love your house they’ll find another provider

If the buyers really want the property, and you don't wish to drop the price (not suggesting you should), then they'll just have to go to another lender. This happened to me years ago - had a decent deposit and a mortgage in principle arranged. The mortgage company sent their surveyor around and then valued the property at significantly less than the asking price. I went to another company, who valued it at the asking price straight away.

The EA valuations mean nothing in this market. 5 years ago, you could basically get whatever you asked for, people were falling over themselves to buy houses, competing and pushing up prices.

It’s different now. Very few houses achieve their full asking price as interest rates are high and mortgages are harder to secure. The market is declining but EAs obviously want as much as they can get so they price knowing there’ll be some negotiation. Most houses are taking months to sell, not days.

I don’t know if your house is priced right, but at the moment, there’s clearly a problem if a mortgage lender won’t agree with your valuation. The fact yours in the only 5 bed also suggests you don’t have a decent comparison locally.

Im not having a go, I’m simply saying that you can insist on full price as much as you want but the buyer would be foolish to pay £30k out of their own pocket when lenders are telling them it’s not worth it. As I said, it’s a buyers market, unfortunately for you. If they pull out, I suspect you’ll have similar issues, whether that’s people negotiating to start with or mortgage lenders saying the same thing (they’ll be basing it off something!).

Why aren’t you saying how much % increase you’re asking for from what you paid? It’s making me think you’ve overpriced. Your house shouldn’t be worth much more than it was 4 years ago unless you’ve made significant improvements.

Nationwide undervalued a house we were attempting to remortgage about 15 years ago. It would have put us into negative equity (financial crisis times) so we decided to sell as we knew the valuer (also out of area) was clueless. He valued it at 175k and we sold for 210k. The buyer had no problem getting a mortgage with another provider.

If the buyer is keen, you could offer to pay for a second survey with another lender. Lenders seem to have been much more cautious since 2022, when the market peaked in most areas. You could also consider meeting them half way with the valuation. I wouldn't place too much store by what estate agents say because most have been over valuing a lot since the market peak and then reducing.

I do wonder if older houses are just going to get harder and harder to mortgage as time goes on. Mortgage companies like box ticking (to be fair, they have to for regulatory reasons) and the moment EPC stuff etc comes in, older houses start to look really niche. Niche doesn't fit well into the mortgage industry. And as soon as one mortgage company starts raising questions, they all will (because mortgages are dependent on the saleability of the property in the first place, so they have to be sure the next person can get a mortgage). It's def something I've become more aware of.

I don't think it's old houses only - I'm buying a 2007 built property and finding the mortgage company are far more involved in asking questions and demanding indemnities than I've ever experienced when buying older houses. There seem to be plenty of things about new-builds, flats, leaseholds etc that they'll get twitchy about.

Your buyers need to go with a different mortgage company. I had a similar situation as the buyer in this situation with my house - large Victorian villa with lots of work needing to be done! First two mortgage companies down valued, one put a retainer on the full amount until the roof was replaced, and a third said they would not mortgage at all. We tried a fourth and got the mortgage for the full amount with no contingencies, so it is definitely possible that different mortgage companies will come back with different valuations and criteria.

We have had issues with the 1930s semi we are selling. Solid as a rock. Not even shaken by having bombs land fairly close by during the war.

It has a 1970s loft extension done by the book—according to the law back then. I have various bits of paperwork showing my parents did all they needed to. But the fuss we have had from the surveyor and buyer and his lawyers. We beat them down on their request for a hefty reduction post-survey and offered 40% of what they wanted off, pointing out that the house had been valued to account for the fact that the extension was older and that this was made clear in the marketing and by the agent viewing.

I am still expecting an eleventh-hour demand for more money off as we approach exchange.

Haha, i would have a small bet that the 1730’s property is far better built than your new build!

Thanks all. I spoke to my mortgage advisor yesterday who said that Nationwide are known for doing this and have no tolerance for a house that is anything other than completely bog-standard.

Our buyers, frustratingly for us, don't want to explore looking at any other lenders. I don't know why they are tied to Nationwide but we have to accept that that's the way it is. Apparently they didn't actually pay for the Countrywide survey. It must have been a free survey deal with Nationwide. 🤷‍♀️ They are now getting quotes for an independent level 3 survey which will satisfy the criteria for the mortgage. We've requested that they only choose someone from within the local area and our agent has sent them some recommendations.

They've said they'll make up 20k of the 28k down-valuation if we cover the remaining 8k. It feels like a kick in the teeth, especially when we're positive the valuation was incorrect but we've said that we'll do it.

Crossing our fingers that this sees us over this first hurdle.

Countrywide surveyors are the firm
nationwide use

That wont have been the survey. That was the valuation

Do your buyers want a level 2/3 survey? That could well kick up more
Issues

Aslong as they don’t need to borrow more than the max nationwide will agree, it doesn’t mean you need to loose out and you can still go ahead with the price agreed.

No, it was definitely both. They specifically said it to me on the phone and then the guy said it again when he arrived. He said he would do the valuation first and then the survey. He was here for about 2 hours.

They are looking into getting an independent level 3 done now. I'm not greatly worried about issues because we only moved in 4 years ago and had a full level 3 done. The house came out very well and nothing has changed in that time. Obviously, I know things can change but there isn't anything that is visibly obvious either internally or externally. It's the least problematic house we've ever had - much less than our last house that was built in the 80s!

That’s good news anyway that they are prepared to get a level 3 survey from an independent surveyor. Hopefully they will be reassured by what that surveyor reports.

Fingers crossed the surveyor agrees with the £440k then.
Might be a big ask on a very old house. That’s only 2% off your 450k.

I couldn’t believe the nonsense in my report (I’m with nationwide). The surveyor couldn’t find anything including the garage which was directly outside and filled the report with comments about how some properties have X problems without them being a problem he had identified in mine. Giant arse covering waste of money.

Since when has 2025 minus 1730 been 400 years?
It's not even 300 🤣

Our buyers had a survey done by nationwide, they guy took a couple glances round, asked if we had JKW in the garden or spray foam in the attic, took my word for both without checking. He then said “houses round here sell for £xxx (£40k under the actual going rate) and I said no the one we are joined to went for over asking, so he used that valuation instead.

I was very glad at that point our ongoing mortgage wasn’t with nationwide.