Survey liability question

hedgehopper_2

Hi all. Hopefully a quick one: if you book your (buildings) survey through a mortgage lender during the application process, are you still liable for the costs of the survey if they then turn you down as an applicant?

Is there an across-the-board answer to this, or is it a case of 'ask your lender'? (feel like I've been on the phone to them almost constantly this past week!)

thanks
HH

lincroft1710

There would be little point in finding a house, having a survey done and then applying for a mortgage. Until you have a mortgage offer, you won't be regarded as a serious buyer by estate agents.

hedgehopper_2

we've had our offer accepted on an agreement-in-principle, so that's actually not the case. Part of the reason we want to do the survey quickly (with the same lender our AIP is from) is to show that we are serious...

Anyway, my original question still stands.

sonastin

You pay the valuation fee upfront as a cost of applying for the mortgage. If you are upgrading the valuation, I presume the upgrade fee is taken at the same time. The mortgage company will then send out the surveyor and assess your application including the report made by the surveyor. The mortgage company may then turn down your application for whatever reason, but as the survey has already been carried out at this point, it is unlikely that anyone will be giving you your money back.

You could pay for the basic valuation, get the mortgage approved and then instruct an independent surveyor to do the full survey if you don't want to risk the additional fees because you are worried that you might be turned down. Depending on where you are, this might be more expensive in the long run as the top-up fee is usually cheaper than the valuation fee + independent survey fee.

hedgehopper_2

Thanks Sonastin, that's really helpful. I was prepared to accept this as a cost we might lose, but wanted to have an idea of whether that was realistic. Obviously you lose it if it throws up something terrible about the house, too!

Think I might go with the basic valuation, survey later option. Lender seemed to be pushing me to book in both at the same time, and we do need to get things moving fairly quick, but if that is an option then we'll bear that in mind, cheers.

sonastin

Its worth getting some quotes from surveyors in your area. Here in the North West I was getting quotes for a full building survey for less than Nationwide charged for the basic valuation. Unfortunately still had to pay the valuation fee though. Topping up to their homebuyers would have saved about £50 but I figured I preferred the independent surveyor route in case the report threw up something that nationwide wouldn't like. Then the whole purchase of that property fell through so luckily I've only lost the valuation fee!