Remortgage Standard Life ==> Woolwich dilemma

itisallaboutmoney

Hi folks

As some of you'll know barclays [Woolwich plc] took over Standard life and my mortgage now has moved onto Barclays/Woolwich.

My circumstnaces aren't ideal but following the market crash, my fixed rate deal [interest only] expired with standard life and for ages they kept me on their extremely high standard variable rate. This changed when they finally came up with a couple of mortgage products for existing customers. No valuation was carried out and they offered me 1 of their 2 products.

When this deal expired sometime last year, I was put on the standard variable rate, which recently dropped to approx. 4.99% [interest only]

I phoned barclays expecting them to offer me a deal as an existing customer without a valuation. They however want to know what the value of the property is and I gave them my own estimate which was what I thought I could realistically ask for. Unfortunately this meant that my LTV expectation was just over the 90% mark, which meant that the only offer I was getting was something ridiculous as 8% [better to stay on the SVR] This was all based on the figure that I came up with [which could be lesser or higher than what the property is really worth!

My question is, should I valuate my property's value officially or do I come up with a higher valuation to get a 80% LTV deal? If their offer was based on me plucking a random number out a thin air, why can't I make it a bigger one. I am afraid to valuate the property as it is a brand new property and I know for a fact that my neighbours were selling it for cheaper than they bought it for. Would barclays/woolwich offer a deal without an official valuation as I am an existing customer?

Please help!!