cost of homebuyer's report

silvercar

People normally get a valuation and homebuyers report from their lender.

Just had a discussion with someone who has said that Northern Rock were quoting £895 for a homebuyers report. The Coventry charged me £1,100 for the same value property.

I wonder if anyone knows of a table comparing these costs.

Is it cheaper to pay the lender for a valuation and get a home buyers report done elsewhere?

Wickedkitten

http://www.northernrock.co.uk/mortgages/costs.asp

Heth_2

You prices seem quite expensive, unless you are buying a very expensive house.
We paid 465 for a valuation+homebuyers with abbey, for our new house which was 145,500.

clairehi

silvercar wrote:

People normally get a valuation and homebuyers report from their lender.

Just had a discussion with someone who has said that Northern Rock were quoting £895 for a homebuyers report. The Coventry charged me £1,100 for the same value property.

I wonder if anyone knows of a table comparing these costs.

Is it cheaper to pay the lender for a valuation and get a home buyers report done elsewhere?

Yes I was a bit horrified when we found out how expensive ours was going to be. £720 for both (lender A&L). its not made clear along with the other upfront fees.

the sliding scale is a con as prices for the same size house vary so wildly throughout the country.

I really dont know how solicitors justify a sliding scale for conveyancing either - it seems the logic is if you are buying an expensive house you can afford it.

you could get a separate quote but how likely is it that it will be cheaper to send a second surveyor along?

FTB83

Our Homebuyers Report cost £330, and we had to get a valuation done through Nationwide which cost an additional £295. I hadn't been on this board before then, but did read on some posts afterwards that you can save money by getting both report and valuation through the mortgage company.

In our case we weren't given this option, and by the sounds of it others are still ending up paying more than we did anyway, so I'd advise just shopping around. You can contact the Institute of Chartered Surveyors for a list of local surveyors who offer Homebuyer Reports in your area. I can say that we got slightly stung on ours though - I ignored a recommendation from a friend, and chose to go with the cheapest quote (only £20 difference, but hey! we're money saving). Anyway, the surveyor took over three weeks from instruction to actually do the inspection, and then around three weeks again (and og so much chasing) to send the written report - so I thought I'd keep them waiting for three weeks for my payment (just one week more to go...).

clairehi

FTB83 wrote:

I can say that we got slightly stung on ours though - I ignored a recommendation from a friend, and chose to go with the cheapest quote (only £20 difference, but hey! we're money saving). Anyway, the surveyor took over three weeks from instruction to actually do the inspection, and then around three weeks again (and og so much chasing) to send the written report - so I thought I'd keep them waiting for three weeks for my payment (just one week more to go...).

well you dont know that your recommendation would def. have been better - but that is agonisingly slow!

Cristy

http://www.portman.co.uk/mortgages/questions.asp?icid=F162-6399360-103H (scroll down a bit)

Either your lender's charges are extremely steep, or you're buying an extremely expensive house. If the latter, I'm very jealous

silvercar

Either your lender's charges are extremely steep, or you're buying an extremely expensive house.

I thinkthe answer is a combination of both!