Britannia's valuations for mortgages

bibsey

We have just visited Britannia Building society to renew our mortgage as our fixed in deal is expiring soon. We enquired about a 2 year fixed deal that has an interest rate of 3.89% that allows you to borrow up to 60% of the value of your property. Our house would be put on the market for approx. £125,000 and our martgage is currently £66,500. I believe that means our loan would be about 54% of the value of the property so within the boundries for the offer. When Britannia used their system to value our property it came back with £91,000! When we questioned it they said we could pay £65 for another valuation to be done but it may still come back low. The Britannia can obviously just make up any old valuation to force you into taking a higher interest rate! Is this fair? and can anything be done about it?

Thrugelmir

bibsey wrote: »

When we questioned it they said we could pay £65 for another valuation to be done but it may still come back low. The Britannia can obviously just make up any old valuation to force you into taking a higher interest rate! Is this fair? and can anything be done about it?

If you are interested in the product. Then make an application and pay the valuation fee.

Britannia will not have the information on the desktop to make an accurate valuation.

kingstreet

Why not look at moving to a new lender? Remortgage products often have no fees, so an inspection by a surveyor may result in you getting as good a rate, without it costing you anything.

betmunch

bibsey wrote: »

When we questioned it they said we could pay £65 for another valuation to be done but it may still come back low. The Britannia can obviously just make up any old valuation to force you into taking a higher interest rate! Is this fair? and can anything be done about it?

Yes, you can pay the £65 to have the house valued by a person rather than a computer!

ACG

Ive worked for co-op mortgages (which are part of britannia).
The valuation is a desktop valuation - im not sure what it pulls its figures from but it will be something similar to zoopla probably.

If your paying for a valuation someone will go out to view the property probably just a driveby. Its done by a company called countrywide and is independent by a chartered surveyor.

Hellybob

I had exactly the same thing. The computer told me it was worth 117,000. I paid Britannia £65 and the valuer said it was worth 149,000 . The £65 was well worth it for me.

Hellybob

Meant to say it was rather a lengthy valuation and the chap phoned me up afterwards and I also got the full written report.

bibsey

Many thanks everyone! I think we may well pay the £65 as it seems that it could be money well spent.
Great advice - appreciate it :T

thermos

For what it's worth I had a valuation done by Britannia 2 months ago as I'm remortgaging with them. For the £65 it was a very thorough affair. Surveyor looked around the house for 20 minutes and spotted things I had never noticed. They valued it at £15,000 more than I had guessed at so in all very well worth doing. Then got a detailed written report through the post by the surveyor forwarded by Britannia. Maybe in some areas it is done by computer /drive -by but this was a proper valuation.