Help needed on how to change a surveyor's valuation of a house.

napalmnun

Hello Everyone,

Any help with the following problem would be most appreciated. We have an agreed mortgage with Nationwide for 90% LTV on a house in a small village in Oxfordshire which we had an offer accepted at £390K (asking price was £399K). We paid for the home buyers survey on this house which came up with no problems, however his valuation of the house was put at £370K as he could find no other house of the same size sold in the village in the previous 3 months. This means that Nationwide will now only lend us 90% of £370K which is not enough as we can't magic up an additional £20K and the vendors will not reduce their price. We had done some investigations before agreeing the £390K price with the vendors and had found out the nextdoor but one neighbours house had sold two years previous for £392.5K on an identical sized plot, but the house itself was slightly smaller as it did not have the same first floor extension that the one we wish to purchase has. House prices in South Oxfordshire have bucked the trend and are still at their peak prices currently due to the complete lack of housing in the area and the fact the demand completely outstrips supply. We have spoken to the surveyor and he will not move on his valuation as he has been told to under value all properties on a 90% mortgage anyway to make sure they are not sued by the mortgage lenders if a reposession happens.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can make the surveyor change his mind? I have lodged an appeal with the company, but I have to provide evidence to prove my case.

Many thanks

beecher2

I'd be concentrating on changing the vendors' minds rather than the surveyor's.

SouthCoast

Several threads on this theme appear daily here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?f=16&order=desc

VIGILANT22

beecher2 wrote: »

I'd be concentrating on changing the vendors' minds rather than the surveyor's.

Beecher is correct...to challenge this you would probably have to provide proof of last 3 sales....fighting a loosing battle really.....surveyors are erring on the side of caution..

_Andy_

Why would you want to pay more than what it's worth?

napalmnun

Thanks for everyone's replies so far.

I would certainly argue that the house is worth considerably more than the £370K the surveyor is prepared to put to paper because of the high LTV% of the mortgage. Surely the LTV of the mortgage should have no bearing on the valuation of the house from an "independant" surveyor. The house value is ultimately what someone is prepared to pay for it anyway.

VIGILANT22

Yes and at this point it is the lender paying for it.........

JA1000

"the surveyor and he will not move on his valuation as he has been told to under value all properties on a 90% mortgage anyway to make sure they are not sued by the mortgage lenders if a reposession happens."

Esurv by any chance???????

dimbo61

Offer the vendor £370K for the house and if they say no then walk away.
Dont forget that they did not pay £370K for the property and the place they might want to buy has also dropped in value !
Good Luck

surreybased

Hi,

I can understand how frustrating it is for you but I think surveyors are being cautious. Last month there was a 1.5% drop in prices, if this trend continues then the surveyor will be proved right. Upshot is the banks want people to risk more of their own money as they can't afford to have properties with negative equity on their books.

Did the house have many bidders previously? How long on the market?

Where I'm live prices did bounce back (but not sure it went to peak) however the market is slowing, houses which were being snapped up are hanging around for a few weeks.
The valuation isn't that low compared to asking 5% so I suspect it will be hard to get the surveyor to change their mind.

Of course it's really annoying but I would focus efforts on the seller - could they drop their price? If they don't they risk having the same thing happen again, unless they get a buyer with 70% or less LTV.

Cannon_Fodder

If the South of the county remains at peak, the rest of the county must be in deep do-do, to still be resulting in an average since peak of -10%. Doubtful.

[IMG]http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/houseprices/housepriceindex/report/default.asp?g=1&gt=1&a=Oxfordshire&s=01 January 2007&e=01 January 2010&t=1[/IMG]

Be generous and say the South has had a smaller fall, say -5%, and the house from 2 years ago would be £373k - does the vendor want to lose a buyer for £3k ?

Well done surveyor.