IF & House Valuation

beckycs

I am a bit annoyed as our mortgage company, Intelligent Finance, insist we use Colley Surveyors to have our house valuation done.
Colley's are going to charge us £500 for just the valuation, and if we want the home buyer report through them this will be an extra £290, making £790.
Other firms have quoted between £320 and £470 for the home buyers report.

We're tied in to IF for another year, as we have a good rate, but high redemption fees, we can't change mortgage company. I've tried calling IF back but they are not budging, and we have to have this £500 valuation done.

Any advice?

B

_Andy_

Not sure what advice you're after - if they insist you have to pay it then you do.

beckycs

I guess I was hoping there was something we could do about the excessive charge, as we are tied in to using them, they can charge whatever they like, and this did not seem right.
I've tried pushing IF to do a desktop valuation, but they have said no, so think we are going to have to swallow the cost of doing it, and put it down to part of the cost of moving house.

B

Cannon_Fodder

Other Lenders, with cheaper surveys, would probably have wanted a higher rate or arrangement fee at the time you went with IF.

Its swings and roundabouts.

That's why you need to consider the whole cost over the term of a mortgage, to be sure that the good rate you think you are getting is actually good, or not. Their survey fee didn't put you off in the first place?

Add up how much you have saved with the IF "good rate", and mentally assign some of that to the survey.

You probably still come out of it ok.

beckycs

Thanks.
We got our mortgage rate a year ago, for our current home, and are porting it to our new house.
But you are right, we are saving a lot by having a cheaper interest rate, so overall come out well.

Becky