Any insights on Countrywide Surveyors valuation process?

[sightofmind]

DS's mortgage application has been delayed because his lender's valuation report from Countrywide Surveyors reported that the Share of Freehold flat he is purchasing has a large Service Charge. It doesn't. At our request, the lender has asked the surveyor to review this information, but has not received a response after a week. Possibly they are on holiday, or maybe they are just unresponsive. In the meantime, the application is in limbo.

My questions are:

How Surveyors determine service charges? There is nothing in the public accounts, and they didn't ask the Estate Agent. (If they had, they would have been told there was no Service Charge). Do they use estimation?

Do Countrywide Surveyors have managers that queries can be escalated to when they don't respond to their corporate customers, or are they all independent surveyors?

I cant answer any of your questions but I have dealt with countrywide surveyors before, on my previous property. I paid for a full survey, it was around 800 if I remeber correctly. He basically wrote a load of nonsense. Said there was an asbestos tank in the loft, it was metal, said the windows had no lintels, but if he knew anything about the properties of that time he would lnow that they didnt have them and there was anorher way the load was held. Wasted my money, couldnt even be bothered to complain

The surveyors working for Countrywide are employees of Countrywide, not independents. There are more managers than surveyors. Chase your query again, someone should be able to answer it if the surveyor is away.
Service charge is normally ascertained by asking the estate agent, managing agent or vendor. Perhaps , in this case, there has been a mistake.