Long wait for Nationwide HomeBuyers Survey - go private?

User1312

We submitted our mortgage application to Nationwide on Friday 2nd June and opted to upgrade our valuation to a HomeBuyers report for £250. Unfortunately Nationwide can't get the survey booked in until the last week of June, which means no offer until July.

Our broker has advised that we can get the cost of the report refunded, and go to an independent surveyor for the HomeBuyers, and just use Nationwide for the valuation.

Our options are:

1) Just leave it and wait for Nationwide to do everything. We're not in a huge rush - chain free property, exchange date booked in for mid-August. However, we have instructed solicitors not to do anything until mortgage offer received; if we didn't get a mortgage offer until July, would we still be on track to exchange mid-Aug considering we want to wait to do searches etc?

2) Get our fee back from Nationwide, book in with an independent surveyor. How much would this likely cost (I'm based in the North West)? And the valuation will still need to be booked in with Nationwide so may only bring it forward by a couple of weeks. Is there any point in doing this if exchange isn't until mid-Aug?

Thanks!

DumbMuscle

2) doesn't save you any time - it just costs you money. Nationwide will still be waiting for their valuation, and unless you have it confirmed from them that they could book a valuation earlier than the survey, it seems unlikely to happen.

How about option 3) - let Nationwide continue with the survey, but get the searches booked now. You can instruct your solicitors to request the searches but not take any further action on them until the mortgage offer, but it will at least start the clock ticking on that part of the process (councils can be slow in some places). The searches are probably a similar cost to the extra you would pay to get your own survey done, but having the searches ready earlier will make a much bigger difference to the exchange date.

User1312

Thank you. We've decided to let Nationwide do both, and wait. In the meantime we're getting the solicitors prepped and ready to go, they think they can still do everything before the exchange date.

Frustrating that we won't hear about our mortgage for so long, but not much else we can do!

Thanks