London & Country - fees before offer?

emv

We asked for some quotes via London & Country who have made a recommendation of a mortgage provider & sent through an illustration. But apparently the next step is to pay a valuation fee and that seems wrong as we have no idea whether we'll actually be offered a mortgage.


Is this normal?


Em

Kirstyb1987

Yes! You always pay your valuation fee before your mortgage is accepted. I paid almost £500. Its the risk you take I am afraid.


Good luck!

ACG

It depends on the lender.

If the application gets declined and the valuation has not been carried out lenders will usually refund the valuation fee in full.

Did you not raise these concerns with your broker? Ask the question, thats what they are there for.

amnblog

The Lender is asking you to pay for the cost of ensuring that your intended property is suitable security for lending.

What is the problem?

emv

Thanks, the issue is just that I'm not 100% sure that we will actually meet the lender's conditions - the broker is a bit scatty to say the least, quoted me mortgage payments out by a factor of 10 & couldn't work out why I was saying they were much too high. (Yes, I'm working on finding another broker!) And I have asked, just no response yet, wanted to know if this was standard.


I would expect that we would go through things with the lender to make sure we meet all of their conditions, they are happy with us being self-employed etc. Then we'd pay the fee before we went ahead, of course. But of we don't meet affordability criteria etc. we'd potentially have wasted the valuation fee.

amnblog

You would normally get a decision in principle BEFORE you pay the valuation fee.

This is no guarantee you will get the formal offer - but it lets you know you are in the ball park.

If you are not confident your broker knows what they are doing - don't allow them arrange credit scores on your behalf before you find another broker.

emv

Thanks, amnblog, hopefully have a better broker chasing the same deal now.

amnblog

How do you know the new one is 'better'

emv

I can feel it in my bones!

amnblog

That's good enough for me!