How do I get a favourable valuation for the BI?

CeeBeeDeeBee

Hi, everything is going along as well as can be expected.

About two months into BR now and the phone calls have stopped , had one bailiff at the door who went away as soon as I told him I was now BR

We're allowed to keep the car and now we have to sort the house out.

What is the best way to get a favourable valuation. At the moment the house is a tip lol. I have asked 3 local estate agents to come round next week to give us a valuation and I have told them all we need a quick sale as we are moving to another area soon

How do I get them to value the house as low as possible? The full market value is about £100K and we have £80K secured, we have available about £4K to buy the BI back so we really want a valuation of around £90K - should we just tell them thats the figure we would be happy with?

Is it worth making the house look worse? ie cardboard over a few windows, kitchen cupboard doors hanging off etc?

Thanks

skylight

Any agent or valuer worth their salt wont price it at a level you want. Agents "may" if you ask nicely. A valuer has a membership he is part of and a level of professionalism to maintain so would be insulted if you asked him to go against that! An agent, not quite so.

The OR may also send someone round to do a drive by valuation anyway and that may not reflect yours! Have you checked online what prices in your area are realistically going for? A property is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

And how much are you prepared to walk away? The OR is in the driving seat with properties, and if they insist you are to pay £10k or more then what would you do? Have a follow through plan in case.

debtinfo

As skylight says, the property is worth what it is worth, if there is a big discrepency between your valuation and the OR's valuation then they are going to think something suspicious is up and probably insist that that you get a proper survey done at your own cost. Thats not to say that when you get a valuation that you cant negotiate with the OR

CeeBeeDeeBee

Hi, thanks both for your answers.

We had the house valued last year about September and the 3 agents all gave figures around the £100K mark as the value for a sale on the open market.

We have £80K secured, and only I went BR so that would give my BI at around £10K.

I have checked online and the last house sold on our street was in May 2007 and was for £115K, obviously since then the markets have dived so this info isn't really accurate for comparison.

So the main thrust of my question is should we leave the house as it is, relatively tidy and sound, and ask the agents for 'a realistic valuation for a really quick sale', or get the kids to crayon all over the walls etc to drive the value down? Surely if we have 3 agents all agreeing on the price this would go some way to convince the OR of the value?

If the OR disagrees with the valuation and, for example, uses the last sale data of £115K and we don't agree a way forward would they sell it on the open market or put it to auction?

If it went to auction surely they would be likely to achieve the £90K or less we are looking for?

skylight

Anything is worth it.

There is a poster here who's OR is refusing to budge on their drive by valuation. The poster even paid a surveyor/valuer to do a proper job but the OR is refusing to budge or negotiate.

It does seem to be lately that ORs are becoming a bit harder on BI and their worth when you look at recent posts on this subject (the above mentioned being the harshest)

The OR basically has 3 years to sort this out in, so they are not in a rush. It's not likely the markets will drop into freefall again in that time (but you never know), so it's possible the OR does notthing hoping for a price increase in that time frame. And they could do either, a forced sale at auction open market; you wouldn't know until the time came.

Just be honest and tell the agents you want a fast sale price. Don't do any damage to your home as it will cost you to put it right again and you still have to live there!

You really are not going to know what you OR is like on properties until this starts, although they are a little softer when only one goes BR; ORs don't want to be seen forcing out innocent parties!

I do hope it goes well for you, but get a rough back up plan in place too. Just in case, because you never know.

CeeBeeDeeBee

Cheers Skylight, my OR seems to be moving fairly swiftly so hopefully thats a good sign.

During my interview he asked if we would be interested in buying the house back and I told him we have sounded out both sets of parents and could get about £4K. I have no other assets so once he has dealt with this I wouldn't have thought there was much left for him to do.

He also indicated that they were open to any argument we had to reduce my BI percentage as my wife has paid the mortgage for the last 3 years, I have not contributed to the household and she is a major creditor etc, but thats another story lol

Hopefully as it's just my BR and we have 2 young kids we can get a reasonable compromise (fingers crossed)

brokeinbristol

Hi there,

Myself and my wife posted our BI epic on here, https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2321045

Have a look at what happened to us, similar story, slightly different equity amount. OR originally estimated £15k, surveyor valuation done (£5.5k) ended up paying £4k. (a severly shortened version!)
Good luck!! keep us posted, I'd love to see the variation between OR's out there!