price difference in home surveys

drummer_666

I have had an offer accepted on a house today.

I want to get a full structural survey. And ASAP.

I have had quotes all from RICS for a full structural survey

one is £260 http://www.kasurveyors.com/
one is £366 http://www.mmsurvey.co.uk
one is £450 http://www.pjsurveyors.co.uk/

They £260 one is the one with the best reviews.

So does price matter? if they all have good reviews and are all RICS registered?

In Birmingham by the way, so prices cheaper than down south.

cattie

Well I have to say, they all sound incredibly cheap too me & unless one of them had been recommended to me I'd be very wary of using the really cheapest as I tend to believe you get what you pay for & the more expensive one might go into more depth than the lower cost options.

I paid in the region of £850 for my structural survey when I bought this house 4yrs ago & that was about average at the time (London suburb).

sirmosh

All you can really go by are what others tell you about them, if the reviews are legit then it seems the cheapest one is worth using, both because of the price and feedback.

drummer_666

cattie wrote: »

Well I have to say, they all sound incredibly cheap too me & unless one of them had been recommended to me I'd be very wary of using the really cheapest as I tend to believe you get what you pay for & the more expensive one might go into more depth than the lower cost options.

I paid in the region of £850 for my structural survey when I bought this house 4yrs ago & that was about average at the time (London suburb).

but how much did your house cost?
it seems to be that the cheaper the value of the house the cheaper the survey

why would you not go for the cheapest one if it has better reviews?

ruggedtoast

I found our surveyor from one of those online sites that pop up if you google "surveyors", and then just went with the cheapest.

They had no website, a gmail account, a residential address miles away, and I had to transfer the money to them by BACS in advance. But we'd had one house fall through and I literally just didn't care by that point; I also surmised that they would have to be pretty dreadful to be worse that E-Surv, who our bank had recommended the first time.

I was right, they were about ten times faster, twenty times more helpful and about half the price of E-Surv.

drummer_666

Do you know what I should do next?

Offer accepted yesterday, spoke to broker yesterday and chose mortgage to go for.

Decision in Principle emailed to EA with broker's details, to take house off market.

Waiting to hear from Broker today with full mortgage application and for him to set up the basic valuation.

Do I wait for the mortgage offer before I instruct my own surveyor? Or do I phone up today and get one booked in?

I want to move on this as fast as possible, so I'm not sure if I should wait for mortgage offer or not.

Going for Nationwide. Have 25% deposit. Clear credit history. Also have banked with them as my main bank for 10+ years. The only thing is I don't have an original P60. So it should go through ok and quite quickly I'm guessing?

snid

I would contact the surveyor, give them all the details, check they are ok to do it for you sand explain you want to move fast, wait for the offer & then instruct the surveyor as soon as you get it.

drummer_666

snid wrote: »

I would contact the surveyor, give them all the details, check they are ok to do it for you sand explain you want to move fast, wait for the offer & then instruct the surveyor as soon as you get it.

ok thanks.

I have had an email from one of the surveyors who is fully booked up for 2 weeks. I presume I'll get my mortgage offer quicker than that, my broker thinks within about a week of application, and he's sending full application today.

I had another surveyor saying he will match any lower quotes. So I have options with good surveyors to use depending on their availability.

So wait for mortgage offer. House should be taken off the market today as I emailed EA agreement in principle and broker's details last night. *Fingers crossed*

If all goes according to plan, as i'm FTB and no chain I could be actually in a house of my own in May...

drummer_666

I ended up upgrading the valuation through the lender. Was £350 more. That's the same I would've paid for a full structural through someone else, but it'll get done quicker this way

House is off market - they cancelled 4 viewings today!
Application processing
Survey being done tomorrow

Yay!

Really hoping for exchange before 23rd May... I think it's def do-able. It's 9 weeks. No chain on either side and vacant house.

That means I can give notice to landlord 23rd May (end date of monthly rolling contract) and only be paying rent and mortgage for one month

ruggedtoast

You'll be getting a homebuyers report not a full structural survey. Fine for most people's needs though, and £350 isn't too bad a price.

Shak_2

What surveyor did you end up going with then? I'm in B'ham and going to buy a house soon. So looking for a good recommendation.

Congrats on getting the house btw.