Should I wait for mortgage offer before building survey?

pieboyjr

We've put an offer in on a house which has been accepted. We met the bank on Wednesday who have passed our application for the underwriters to look at and we should hear back from them in the middle of next week with a view to valuation a few days after. Solicitor has been instructed to undertake the intial searches.

My question is should we outlay more expense on the building survey at this stage prior to the mortgage offer being formally received? We have received an excellent quote from a local surveyor and are quite eager to proceed with everything that we can as we are FTBs purchasing a vacant property at a low offer on the provision that the process is fairly brisk.

Any advice appreciated.

dc197

Ask yourself this: is your time or your money more precious?
If you want to move extremely quickly, book things now, but the risk is that you will lose/waste money if something aborts the sale.
If you want to protect your outlays, at the risk of the process taking longer, don't pay for the next event until its pre-requisites are completed.
A compromise is probably to wait until the valuation survey is done before booking the building survey.

Chelsea__Thomas

As in wait for a mortgage in principle... yes. I agree with dc197, its about cost over time, but personally I would want to put all my ducks in a line, one by one.

danslenoir

Do you have a decision in principle from your lenders?

If so, I'd sort out the survey now. If it picks something up that you need to negotiate a discount from your sellers on, I'd imagine it's both more timely and easier to amend the full mortgage application whilst it's still in progress than after the offer has been issued and all of the paperwork sent out.

pieboyjr

The decision in principle has been agreed; the mortgage application has been sent off and is now with the underwriters.

Shakin_Steve

We are in exactly the same position. I would speak to the surveyor you have lined up and ask him how quickly he can get it done once you give him the nod. I have spoken to a surveyor and he advised me not to use him until after the valuation survey is done and the underwriters have passed the application. I'm paying him £600 for a homebuyers survey, so he's not exactly doing me a favour.

kinger101

The DIP doesn't change anything. The simple fact is the lender could decide there's nothing wrong with the house, but it simply isn't worth what you've offered. Or there's something major that means all bets are off.

Personally, I'd wait until the valuation was done before instructing a surveyor . It sounds like this will happen very soon, and is therefore unlikely to delay exchange (and ultimately completion). Most buyers and sellers find the interminable delays caused by the solicitors are what slows things down in the end.