No valuation required?

marlasinger

We are in the process of buying a house, and we went through the mortgage application this morning.

One thing which took me by surprise was that the lender (Barclays) doesn't require a valuation of the property! The advisor said that they were happy with the price offered. Is this normal? I thought all mortgages would have needed backing of some kind of valuation.

We will be organising our own survey (and they also suggested we do this for our peace of mind), but just very surprised that the bank didn't require one.

sleepymans

yep.....ive never known a mortgage provider not needing a valuation?????
What is the % loan?

amnblog

The Lender does need some form of valuation, but this can sometime be generated through computer data already held.

It the trade it is known as a desktop valuation.

marlasinger

It's 60% LTV. Is desktop valuation similar to how Zoopla do their valuation, for example?

Thrugelmir

marlasinger wrote: »

The advisor said that they were happy with the price offered. Is this normal?

What checks did the advisor perform?

mr_munchem

marlasinger wrote: »

It's 60% LTV. Is desktop valuation similar to how Zoopla do their valuation, for example?

I'd imagine at 60% LTV they're not too worried about getting their money back should things go wrong!

ACG

Some lenders when it is below 75% LTV, they will do a desktop valuation (imagine Zoopla kind of thing). However, this does not protect you in any way, so if there is an issue with the property it will not get picked up and you will have no recourse.

If you want someone to go round the property and give you an opinion on it, you will need to do that separately.

marlasinger

Thrugelmir wrote: »

What checks did the advisor perform?

She did a full credit check, asked to see bank statements, payslips, P60s, identification documents, and asked for solicitors details and the property address. She asked the year the property was built. She started to ask for the estate agents details, then said that it wasn't necessary as they were happy with the valuation. We thought maybe it was something to do with the postcode of the house and the year it was built, and based on that combination it didn't need a valuation??

ACG wrote: »

If you want someone to go round the property and give you an opinion on it, you will need to do that separately.

Yeah, we intend on getting a building survey.

kaych

We had the same thing. Barclays did not do a valuation on our purchasing property. Our LTV is 80%... We commissioned a Homebuyer's report (with valuation) ourselves just for our peace of mind...

marlasinger

Just an update, now that it has gone to the underwriters they have asked for a valuation which will be carried out tomorrow. Our mortgage adviser says this sometimes happens - they instruct a valuation even though the system says it's not required. It is a non-disclosure valuation, so we don't have to pay (but will obviously carry out our own survey).