property valuation - when is it done?

AdRock

My partner and I are in the process of buying our first house.

We have put in an offer and made a mortgage application with Halifax building society. They said we needed to pay £315 for a property valuation which we paid and had done before they confirmed we could have a mortgage. This was done a few weeks ago and now Halifax have said that we can't have the full mortgage amount and we haven't even been given a mortgage.

We have now decided to go with another lender and they said the valuation won't be done unitil we have been given a mortgage offer.

What I want to know is what Halifax done correct and legal where they make us pay for a valuation without first giving us amortgage offer and can we get our money back? I don't think they should have done a valuation until we had a mortgage agreed by the underwriters.

G_M

They cannot make you a formal, firm mortgage offer until the property has been valued. Otherwise they could be offering to lend you money against the security of a property that was worth only a % of what they are lending.

And they will not do a valuation unless you pay for it - it costs them money to send out a surveyor.

It's just an inevitable cost. Unfortunately house-buying is expensive, stressful and uncertain.

Fire_Fox

You can get a mortgage in principle before you even see a house - this is just the lender saying they think your finances are such that they can lend you x thousand. Whether they will lend x thousand on a given house depends on whether the lender thinks the house is worth the purchase price - did you get refused a mortgage by Halifax because of your circumstances of because the property is unmortgageable?

AdRock

Fire_Fox wrote: »

You can get a mortgage in principle before you even see a house - this is just the lender saying they think your finances are such that they can lend you x thousand. Whether they will lend x thousand on a given house depends on whether the lender thinks the house is worth the purchase price - did you get refused a mortgage by Halifax because of your circumstances of because the property is unmortgageable?

yes it was circumstances which have now changed.

It just seems strange that the new lender (better interest rate) said they will offer us the mortgage before the valuation is done

G_M

they said the valuation won't be done unitil we have been given a mortgage offer.

Either whoever told you this made a mistake, or you misunderstood. As Firefox says, they will NOT give you a mortgage offer till after the valuation. They WILL give you a mortgage offer in principal (ie it is conditional).