How long to wait for a survey/valuation?

foreversummer

Hi

I am buying and selling. We instructed solicitors three weeks ago today. My buyer needs a mortgage. I was informed by my EA when I accepted her offer that finance was arranged, not through themselves, but that they had had confirmation that her finance was in place.

Now, 3 weeks on, no survey/valuation has been done. Chased EA. He says that she is very keen to buy and that she is chasing her mortgage company. Alarm bells are ringing with me. Should I be concerned? My financial adviser says that I should give her a time limit in which to arrange a survey. Is this a good idea, or might I lose her through being pushy? She is a buyer in rented accommodation so no chain that end.

Any thoughts and opinions most welcome.

PS I've had my mortgage offer for over a week now. It was all completed really quickly.

cuffie

Definitely put a deadline on it. Get the EA to contact her lender to find out what is going on and to see if she has been in touch yet. We had our buyer pull out after 3 weeks of putting in an offer - the EA contacted the lender to find out nothing had been done!! Has she instructed searches yet? If she hasn't contacted her lender then she is fibbing about chasing the mortgage company. Check with the EA when she needs to vacate her rented property by? Our buyer was in rented and wanted everything to be done quickly because she was going to be homeless at the end of Aug. Needless to say she pulled out and has gone back into rented coz she didn't pull her finger out!
Good luck and get the EA to contact the lender today. xx

hechizero

The buyer is probably keeping options open, however three weeks does not seem excessive. It took just over a week from original call to the mortgage company to receive the "Agreement in priciple" after sending documents back. After that it took me one phone call to book the survey and a week later the survey was done. So three weeks should have been sufficient unless she was sloppy with the paper work and slow to send back details. There could have been some other minor complication. I would chase up and give only one more week to at least book the survey appointment. After that you can consider putting the property back on the market.

foreversummer

Hi

Thanks for your replies.

I've just phoned the EA again to lay down a deadline for the survey to be done etc, etc, to find that yesterday the EA had a call from my buyer's mortgage company to say that everything was fine and that the survey would be instructed within a couple of days.

Of course, the EA did not see fit to pass this info on! Could have saved me a lot of fretting! A little bit of communication goes a long way. You would have thought that EAs would have got the hang of that by now wouldn't you.