Offer accepted - Survey completed - Valued 15k less than offer

blondends

Hi All,

My wife and I are FTB's and we have had an offer accepted on a house. We have just received the Home Buyers Survey we commissioned in the post - it goes in to great depth, more than we thought it would.

The Surveyor has valued the house at £210,000 - we have offered £225,000 (the asking price - as did 2 others). He also pointed out that there is quite a lot of plastering to be done and that the kitchen needs pulling down and starting again (the house was built in 1850 ish). He also states that he doesn't anticipate the house breaking the £250,000 barrier in its current layout (2 bed) - so has recommended that we renegotiate with vendor.

As FTB's we have no idea what to do next - should we now expect issues with the mortgage companies valuation? How do we begin to renegotiate? Are vendors ever open to renegotiation? What is the process - can you get our solicitor to do the negotiation?

Help!!

pawpurrs

Firstly is your survey separate to your mortgage valuation? If so wait and see what that comes back with.
The vendor may or may not renegotiate, if they dont, you have to decide if you can still afford or want it. If there really is two other buyers, waiting for it, they may not renegotiate, and they may or may not encounter the same problem again.
I would renegotiate (if thats what you decide to do, yourself)

blondends

Pawpurs - Yes the survey was independent.

The house is being sold by the son-in-law of an old lady who has gone to a nursing home - so they are selling to pay the fees. There were 3 offers at asking price - it then came down to who could complete the fastest. We were FTB's (i believe the only ones) and had to prove AIP - deposit - basically we jumped through hoop after hoop. In the end they decided to accept our offer - which we were really excited about. They did ask us at one point if we could complete in 6 weeks. So all in all they seem very eager to get hold of the money.

We are now nearly 4 weeks in to the process - so we think that if we were to renegotiate they shouldn't want to dump our offer and go with another because of the added time to completion.

pawpurrs

So if the survey was independant of the mortgage valuation, what did that come back with, I take it that was down valued? Or was it? If the mortgage valuation came back at the figure you offered at, and the independant survey didnt, your case will be less strong, as if the mortgage company are happy with the price, then the mortgage will not be an issue.

blondends

Oh - sorry, the mortgage company haven't valued it yet. I am just concerned that if they do and it comes in under like the survey.

mahdlo

it's a difficult question to answer until you've had the mortgage valuation back.

if that comes in at the same value, do you have the extra £15k?

pawpurrs

4 weeks in, and still no mortgage valuation? When are they due to go? I would wait and see what that comes back with, and then go from there. Is this the same house that where you wrote the letter?

mahdlo

blondends wrote: »

Oh - sorry, the mortgage company haven't valued it yet. I am just concerned that if they do and it comes in under like the survey.

concerned?

i'd be hoping it does!:D

blondends

Cheers for all the comments!!

Pawpurs - No, this is not the house referred to in my post about the offer letter. The vendor just wasn't willing to come down as far as our offer - though we are glad because we like this house a lot more.

We are going with a HSBC mortgage and because we haven't had any time to go in to a local branch we have had to do it over the phone. Though because we weren't existing HSBC customers we did have to go in on a Thursday night (late opening) and get a branch member to validate our ID - which they forgot to authorise and resulted in us having to go back the following Thursday. So - fingers crossed they have all the documents they NOW need and we get an answer soon.

Mahdlo - I too would love to knock off £15k from the price but because this whole process is new to me I just do not know when and what to expect.


What I don't like about the property purchase process is the paranoia and second guessing it leads to. I wish the whole process was a lot more transparent and open - it would make it whole lot more pleasant!!

sciencegeek

I have recently spoken to a lady at HSBC (on the phone) I asked her how they arrive at their mortgage valuation - eg state of property, square footage, recent prices of similar properties etc......

she informed me that they just use the offer price as the valuation, for example if i agreed to buy a grotty newbuild flat for 250k they would value it at 250k for mortgage purposes even if better larger ones were selling for 125k in the same block.

She is either thick as two short planks and does not understand her own companies policy or HSBC themselves are playing an incredibly risky game.

Made me avoid HSBC for an agreement in principle cause i want an undervaluation on the house im interested in (6months on market no reductions but with 3 separate asking price offers on the table).

antheawad

HI there,

Have been googling for some posts to help us with our current situation, and I have stumbled across this old post. Just wondering if someone out there can help?

We are in a similar situation described above, other than we are the vendor, not the purchaser.

We accepted an offer 4 weeks ago for £163k, £2k less than our asking price, including all sorts of fixtures fittings and contents. Survey was carried out Monday of this week by Shepherds, on behalf of HSBC.

The problem came up this morning when our agent was contacted by the purchaser, stating HSBC has written to him on the 15th stating our house has been valued £8k below the accepted price (£155k), and they have now revised their mortgage offer.

We are now in dire straits if I am honest. We had already bargained hard on the house we are buying, so really don't want to go to the people we are buying from and ask them to drop their price any further, after all it's not their problem.

We were wondering if this was a clever way of 'gazundering'? If sciencegeek is right in what he says, then the buyer will have only applied for a mortgage for £155k, knowing that once he has paper saying it's only worth £155, we will have to drop the price.

I know it's only £8k, but it's alot of money if you don't have it to throw away.

Any comments gratefully received.

Thanks in advance,

Anthea