Survey - who pays?

Selbyjay

I'm in the process of selling my share of a Shared Ownership property. The other owner (a housing assoc) has said that i need to pay for a valuation survey by RICS to ensure that the offer i have accepted on the property is fair.

I know you need a survey when buying a house, but do I need to get one when selling? Surely it's the purchaser's responsibility to make sure the house they're buying is worth what they've offered for it? The purchaser doesnt have a mortgage, so could this be why?

The survey isnt a lot of money, so i'm not too fussed about paying for it, i just thought it sounded unusual. Any ideas?

Thks

Moomum

Ive always been led to believe its the buyers job to get a survey done , never heard of the seller having to stump up for one

Selbyjay

Could it be because it's leasehold? I've never sold a property before so i'm not sure what to expect!

Annisele

I have heard of the seller having to pay for a survey for a shared ownership property before.

I'm no expert, but I guess it's because the housing association wants to make sure you're not diddling it out of its % of the true value of the property. If you owned outright, you could accept whatever stupid offer you wanted - you could sell for 50 pence - but the HA would rightly be a bit annoyed if you tried to sell its bit for a low price.

googler

Can you sell your share without the approval of the HA? Is there some kind of contract between you and the HA, or anything in your title deeds that gives them any say in how you dispose of your share?

If not, tell them to get their own survey and pay for it.

If there are restrictions as above, you may not have that luxury.

LisaLou1982

On a stanard house purchase, the buyer is responsible for the survey. On a shared ownership, some HA stipulate that the owner must get a RICS survey done on the property if they wish to sell it. The reason for this is to make sure that the property is sold at true market value rather than an inflated price.

Unfortunately for you, there is no way round it.

cardinalbiggles

LisaLou1982 wrote: »

On a stanard house purchase, the buyer is responsible for the survey.

Apart from in Scotland where the seller has the survey done and made available to potential buyers.

dopester

Selbyjay wrote: »

The survey isnt a lot of money, so i'm not too fussed about paying for it, i just thought it sounded unusual. Any ideas?

Thks

Another drawback of many shared-ownership schemes.

I clearly recall you championing the shared-ownership concept... well this is obviously another downside cost to incur you weren't aware of before (which I and many others were aware of).

A cost you'll have to probably swallow I'm afraid. Good luck with the offer/sale though.

SelbyJay wrote: »

I dont want to get in to the whole "shared ownership is a scam" argument, because i can vouch for their effectiveness. Some schemes are better than others and they should be assessed on their own merits. The scheme helped me build equity and thus a deposit for another house. Isnt that the whole point??

I dont believe for one second that i made a mistake buying this place. I've been very happy here for 4 years. Nows just time to move on. And i would certainly recommend any, well thought out, SO scheme to anyone and advise them not believe all the rubbish you read about them on here.

I didnt pay an over inflated price (even 4 years ago i couldnt have got the quality of build and spacious living space for what i paid for this, anywhere else in this area) and the only conditions i agreed to were not to change the exterior appearance of the property, pay my rent on time and sell to another FTB. And even with rock bottom interest rates on my mortgage, my rent and mortgage is still about £150/£200 a month less than if i owned the property outright.

Ooo how i feel like i'm being scammed!

If my property is currently over valued, i believe it's because A) i've mistakenly put trust in EAs or because of the wider troubles in the housing market. Not because it's part of a SO scheme.

Selbyjay

I'd hardly say a £200 fee was a drawback. Yeah, it was unplanned but that's what contingency money is for. All the other fees had been made clear from day one and have been properly budgeted for. There can always be unplanned expenses when selling a house so i think it's pretty unreasonable to once again tarnish the concept of shared ownership when extra expense could easily occur in any house sale.

An extra £200 is here nor there but the advice is appreciated as i had previously been told two different things by the Housing Assoc.

Thanks all for your comments, much obliged.

G_M

Selbyjay wrote: »

....The other owner (a housing assoc) has said that i need to pay for a valuation survey by RICS to ensure that the offer i have accepted on the property is fair. ...

Wasn't the answer to your question in your original post?

dopester

Selbyjay wrote: »

I'd hardly say a £200 fee was a drawback.

Okey Dokey.

I just hope you don't fall foul of anything else in the shared-ownership selling process.

When did you tell the Registered Social Landlord (the organisation who owns the other share) that you were selling up? Only recently, and thus discovering you must pay for a survey? I know you've had it on the market for quite some time.

Have you been advised of any sole agency nomination period applies? Hopefully it doesn't, or if it does, that you've already been through that process.

[Such as an eight week period when the Registered Social Landlord (housing association / trust ect) often have first option to attempt to find a suitable buyer themselves? (Usually with a 0.5% - 1% percentage fee charged to seller.) Hope you've not jumped the gun in selling on the open market if that applies... if you've only just found out about your responsibility for paying for the survey.]

Unless you own the property outright, clauses in the lease may enable the housing association to nominate prospective buyers and to restrict the sale price to an independent valuer’s valuation.