Buyer's mortgage valuation taking very long

evian15

Hi,
I'm currently selling a house in a chain. Our buyer is the end of the chain.
We agreed an offer 4 weeks ago with our buyer, and in this time, my seller and I have both got our finances and solicitors ready to go with exchanging. However, our buyer still has not come through with a valuation booked for our house and therefore his finances are not in place. From what I know, buyer is getting a buy to let mortgage with about 35-40% deposit via a broker.


my question is - Is 4 weeks a very long time for a full mortgage application to go in, and not yet have had a valuation booked on our property? Or is this considered normal? We got our mortgage in less than 2 weeks - that's inclusive of signing up with a new broker to full mortgage offer.

Wassa123

Yes that seems a long time to book in a valuation/survey.

Mine was booked in within a week. Granted, it was booked in for 2 months down the line as they were so busy....

Surrey_EA

It will depend on a number of factors.

How soon after having their offer accepted did your buyer complete the mortgage application with their broker?
How promptly did the broker send the application to the lender?
Has your buyer provided all of the necessary documentation required?
Are they a straightforward borrower, or are they self-employed/company director which can sometimes slow the process down?
How busy is the particular lender your buyer has applied to?

If you can get answers to these questions it will help understand where the delay is.

Ask the EA you're selling through to do a bit of digging.

Brown_Eyed_Girl

Yup, it could be that they are having problems with the surveyor. I'm in a very similar situation to your buyer, my mortgage lender instructed the surveyor who quickly put it on hold. It took 10days to find out why - they'd previously surveyed this and two other flats in the block when there was subsidence but the place has now been underpinned

We're having to go back and get them to check the date or the survey and provide a load more info to get them to actually do the thing they are paid to do I.e go out & value the property. Still not sure if they will as they are taking forever to come back to the mortgage lender.

If you know of any previous problems, even if historic and now fixed it' might be worth having anything that proves it's fine ready to pass on to the buyer. My EA was able to give me bits that proved the property had been underpinned and that other properties had been sold with a mortgage (even the same lender).

evian15

thanks
I will ask these questions to the buyer.


we went through online agents so no one else to do the digging for us. And I'm not sure in what direction we can dig ourselves. Our vendor EA did warn us of this, as this is the part where online EAs don't cover.


We are in direct contact with the buyer, who says they have chased and assured us that there was no issue with the mortgage application. Our vendor's EA has been chasing us as the top chain needed a quick sale and therefore has been chasing us.
When we accepted the offer (20th July), we found a property the week after (offer accepted 28th). Our buyer was the one who initiated the fast process - they said they wanted to exchange ASAP so that we won't pull out. They had a broker at the ready to proceed and promised us that they would proceed with the mortgage and instruct the solicitors that week.
just over 2weeks ago, they advised that they had paid for the valuation fee to get the valuation booked in. But we have heard nothing.

evian15

Brown_Eyed_Girl how did you find out that they had put the surveyor on hold? Did you have something booked in previously?

Surrey_EA

evian15 wrote: »

thanks

we went through online agents so no one else to do the digging for us. And I'm not sure in what direction we can dig ourselves. Our vendor EA did warn us of this, as this is the part where online EAs don't cover.

Ah, I see!
Finding a buyer is often the easy part.

Brown_Eyed_Girl

Mortgage adviser called the lender to check how it was progressing the mon/tues after the last update from them at the end of the previous week (Thurs/Friday) that they'd instructed the valuation & survey.

He was expecting to hear a date/ check they had details to arrange access. Instead told the suveyor/valuer put it on hold. Took another week+ for them to give a reason why.

summer_james

No, I am in your buyer's situation. My mortgage has all been approved subject to survey and as I have requested the Homebuyers report that takes 2-3 hours to do, Colleys (the surveyors) say they are just inundated and can't give us an exact date for an appointment yet! There is nothing wrong with the application on our side, it is literally that the surveyors are super busy. I wouldn't worry too much, I put my mortgage application in on 14 August and hence I am still waiting for the survey. It is very, very frustrating but basically there is nothing we as applicants can do.