something dodgys going on? declined on valuation-japanese knotweed

wannahouse

i'm not accusing anyone... he's a nameless person to both myself and you all, but even if was outrageously pointing the finger, i'm not defaming anyone!

but don't be surprised that these things can't happen! the lloyds mortgage adviser was just telling us of a chain that was threatening to fall apart because one of the buyers solicitors was dragging his heels needlessly on everything, taking forever, when it was discovered it was because HE was interested in the property and seeking to gazuump his client behind their back!!! and that was a solicitor!

so these things happen!
nothing the valuer has done so far has been exemplary, from taking 2.5 weeks from being instructed just to go out and actually DO the valuation, to taking 8 days after the valuation, and still not having sent his paperwork in.
the mortgage adviser has hasd to chase him all week, just to hear from him today saying it will be an outright decline...without even suggesting it needs to be properly identified first!!!

i'm a green finger, i could not see anything that could be mistaken for knotweed.... but i would believe a specialist horticulturist if he came back with a valid id.

Jimbo1976

Ask for your copy of the valuation. It won't be very detailed but there will be a box where "no" is crossed which will say something like "suitable security for a mortgage" then it should give the reason.

If it is a Lloyds Mortgage then it will be likely to have been done by a Surveying firm called "Colleys" as it is part of Lloyds Banking Group. Your valuation will tell you who did it and should give a number.

If you don't want to wait, go here http://www.colleys.co.uk/business/mortgage-brokers/contact-us/contact-a-local-surveyor/ and put in your postcode and it will give you the number of the local surveyor. Speak to them and find out if they did it. If they did you should be able to have a grown up conversation and ask where they saw the knotweed etc

If you search on Japanese Knotweed on here there will be plenty of posts. it may be that you can arrange for the knotweed to be treated and then get the surveyor back to confirm this and then you may get your mortgage.

wannahouse

thanks jimbo

so..we have called colleys and gotten on to the surveyor...

apparently he saw something he thinks "might" be knotweed, or might be hock..apparently he said they look very similar ...- NOT!!!!!!!!!!

the fact that he has mistaken a common weed (which isn't even hock either) for japanese knot weed is very worrying, considering we have to go on his say so regarding any other problems with the property too!

if you google hock and knotweed, you will know why i feel very confident in the fact that WE are right, and there is no knotweed present!

now, we will have to pay for a survey by a specialist to prove to lloyds that the surveyor is full of it and doesn't know what he's taking about...another £495 + vat out the window because of his incompetance!

very scary that many sellers or buyers would lose their sales based on people with this kind of lack of experience with identifying plants, making recommendations...

i will update you further when theres something else to say...

Jimbo1976

I would complain to Colleys. Also RICS (the surveyor professional body)

Here is a link to what RICS says about knotweed

http://www.rics.org/uk/knowledge/news-insight/press-releases/rics-targets-the-root-of-japanese-knotweed-risk-to-property/

ILW

Use a different lender.

wannahouse

its just a joke that a surveyor reports there is japanese knotweed within 7 metres of the property, but when you question him on it he backs down and said maybe its hock-they look similar!

theres NOTHING within 7 metres of the house but old dead thistles and other common weeds..there some lilly spears coming up through the ground, but they are obviously lillies and the flowers are just starting to open on them..

we have asked him to send the report to us via email this afternoon, as the one he supposedly "mailed out`' has never arrived...

he also said there was ongoing movement in the house (doubt that, conservation officer and 2 builders experienced in old buildings have all agreed the cracks are historical, backed up by the fact some of the cracks have been filled long ago and never widened., and that its going to cost a fortune to put right before it could be lent on...anyway thats the job of the next guy, the historic and listed building surveyor to look at , which is why we have him lined up ready to go and of no surprise...he has also remotely seen around 80 detailed photos of the residence including the worst bits, to prepare him for it, and he also thinks from what he has seen in pics, that its not going to cost too much in remedial works to get to the point that the bank will lend on it...


my idea of not too much, is btwn 2-12 grand...the surveyors idea of a fortune could be anyones guess!!

i have heard people on here freaking out about their survey showing they'd have to spend 2 thousand on something, and where would `'they ever get that kind of money!"..its all relative, someones idea of a fortune, might be less than the other person was expecting, and it sounds like this surveyor has been pushing the panic button on everything, instead of just going through the due process...(and googling what japanese knot weed looks like before he claims its present!) i would have preferred to have a nice dinner out a few times than spend it on proving that mr green thumb surveyor mistook a common thistle or whatnot for a serious weed...

bah humbug!

daveyjp

You need to press further for a location and then go out and see it. Before doing so ask the surveyor what he saw.

At this time of year it will be nothing more than brown dead looking sticks, depending on the location there may be new growth - this makes it difficult to spot unless like me you are a saddo who knows Knotweed inside out! I see patches daily and at the moment there has been no new growth due to the low temepratures.

If he is wrong you certainly have cause for complaint.

BTW your comment "if there WAS knot weed present it surely would be blindingly obvious in a property left to its own for years?"

Not necessarily - if you leave a patch of knotweed it may not spread at all. If you start hacking it that's when it starts growing wild.

Thrugelmir

wannahouse wrote: »

i have heard people on here freaking out about their survey showing they'd have to spend 2 thousand on something,

bah humbug!

Grade 2 listed buildings can be money pits. Nor do you know what you might inherit from the previous owner. That may cost money to rectify.

Wh05apk

Straight back to Lloyds, and suggest you put a formal complaint in, this will then be dealt with formally, it sounds like the valuer has rightly (but incorrectly) raised a concern, which has then been mis-interpreted by Lloyds, I would guess they will need a further specialist report just to confirm it is not knotweed.

wannahouse

thanks for your replies.

so this is the actual story now, after a jumble of information...

survey took ages to actually get done
lloyds mortgage adviser had to chase him for 2.5 wks to DO the valuation, and then had to chase for 9 days to get some word from him...

its NOT as i said before,declined by lloyds YET!

that was a miscommunication...
what it is is the mortgage adviser chased him to find out what the heck was going on, and the valuer emailed back saying no go, absolutely not, -got knotweed, along with ongoing movement, damp, electrical issues etc, tell them to look for another house, its not going to happen...

so we went and looked around again last night for an hour, and saw NOTHING that resembled knotweed in summer/winter/spring state whatsoever.

so after jimbo telling me to find out who the surveyor was and call them, we did that and quizzed him on it, asking WHERE it was exactly, so we could look even closer, and told him that despite a very good look, we believe he was mistaken, which is when he backed down and said "well, it may have been hock, which looks just like knotweed, maybe he was wrong... "
(i actually think he meant DOCKWEED, as i found nothing on the net about this supposed hock weed he was talking about! lol!..guy really knows his plants!!)

so we called a company that could come out and survey for japanese knotweed, who also have indemnity insurance, and we asked the surveyor, 'if we can get a specialist out to do a survey of the complete grounds and he states that there is absolutely no knotweed present are you able to amend your valuation statement...?" he said probably so....

he said he would email us through the complete valuation, as we need to have that for the historical and listed building surveyor to go in and check all the other issues (which weren't a surprise and expected) and report back to lloyds on those, with recommendations for how we should go about remedying those problems ,in order to then get the mortgage granted...the lloyds adviser has always said we would get a copy.

he then emailed us back today, after my husband asked him to please let us know a bit more precisely WHERE this mysterious invisible knotweed was located, as all he said was it was on the right of the house within 7 metres, and he broke off a piece of stem and it was hollow ,so it must have been knotweed...
there is no bamboo like clumps of dead stems there at all...all there is in that area are different types of weedy dead grasses and thistle stems!
he only told us he "can't remember where he saw it," which is surprising, as i think you would remember seeing a red flag!

he just emailed back and told us he now could not give us a copy of the details as it was `'undisclosed" and even though we applied through lloyds who would normally give us a copy ,it was actually a c`&g mortgage, so he couldn't disclose the valuation.


the agent thinks he threw up the old knotweed goody to wipe his hands of the case, as its not the usual candidate for a mortgage and he doesn't want to get caught out of his depths with the valuation of the house, and the knotweed story is always a good one to shut the book, as that is the point most people walk away...
as i mentioned before, i am a green thumb and i honestly know there is not a skeric of knotweed on that property..he seemed to backtrack a little when we said we'd get the experts in to prove it!

we then left a message for the lloyds adviser telling him the details and asking him to try to get us a copy to give the surveyor who is doing the full survey..

i feel like this surveyor is trying to pip us at the post here..
we're not idiots, we know what it means to buy a listed building, we have spoken with the conservation officer, who happens to be a good friends ,good mate, who we have met socially and they are fairly relaxed around here...a few ceiling will need to be redone, we can do them in plaster board instead of lime if we want ..that would be fine etc, and they are fairly progressive with eco stuff, so we are not concerned, and understand it costs more...

we KNOW theres been some movement, but two master builders who have worked on many listed buildings believe it is historical ,as does the conservation officer, and you can SEE where some of the cracks were filled years ago, and it still hasn't moved since, so we are fairly confident that the structural engineer will agree...
he said evidence of past (not active) dry rot...no one else found such a thing anywhere, damp in some places etc which are NOT surprises (apart from the apparent dry rot he thinks he saw) as we have looked through the building extensively with working professionals!!!
AND we are going to get the big man in to do the big check..IF he says its a piece f garbage, walk away, ofcourse we would, but both the builders and the conservation officer agreed that despite its intial bad appearance,its actually in good shape for its age and easily fixable..

the lloyds mortgage adviser has know what this house it like from the first time we set foot in his office..we have had many chucklesabout it, and we know that in this kind of circumstance the valuer would go out, freak out about this and that, and then an expert would go in..look at in and then turn around and say for example- no new movement- historical, not a problem, damp easily fixed by doing xyz, and the lloyds guy told us we would probably need to get the electrics checked and rewired to a degree to start with, even though the lights all still work and the powers on!

its a real non standard case, and we told the valuer that we expected there to be things flagged, which we would then rectify to their satisfaction in order to get the mortgage...the vendor will let us do it, and it will be done, so there IS no reason for him not to even ask for further investigations should we still wish to proceed, so the lloyds mortgage can't understand why he has just written it off, and expecting us to go away with our tails between our legs...
anyway, hopefully our adviser can come back to us tomorrow with a copy of the valuation and we can get the next guy in and try and press ahead...this valuer is annoying though..is there anyway you can get someone else on the case, as this guy is determined to fail this ,even if it means making up poppycock about knotweed!

i wish we were able to just go and get a mortgage with one of these eco places or the self build places that aren't scared of a more neglected building, but because of our unique financial situation atm, lloyds is the only way we can get a mortgage...we just changed from self employed to a comoany, so if we want to go through someone else, it will be a few years of books again to comply,whereas with lloyds, because my husband owns under a certain percentage of the company, he is treated as an employee for eligibility , and as he has excellent credit and has a good record with lloyds banking for 11 years, only needed one payslip, despite having just changed to a company, so because of this, we don't have much (if any ) choice...

does anyone know, can you work out a "rent to buy "~~ kind of thing with a private vendor, as if we could live in there for 6 months or a year and just do loads of work first, then a valuer wouldn't be so freaked out!!!

or a private lender who would lend you the sum for a few years while you do it up a little, so you can remortgage with a lender easily..

or rich parents who can just buy it and let you pay it back

the annoying thing is, once we buy it, we can start fixing it up, but each month it sits there unoccupied it just gets that little more decrepid...