Environmental Report - Mortgage Valuation

lebowski1980

Hi All

We are in process of buying a new house and we have just had a response from Barclays following on from their valuation of the property. They have requested that we have a specialist environmental report carried out on the property and until then the application is on hold.

The broker has told us that the from a lending point of view they are satisfied but the environmental needs to be resolved.

I have spoken to our solicitor who has said they have never had a request from a lender for an environmental report at valuation stage.
The property we are buying was under offer previously and the sale fell through but the previous buyers were at the mortgage offer point with no enviromental concerns raised.

I guess if Barclays need it, they need it and we want to buy the house.

Would a standard enviromental search satisfy this request? We are concerned that the cost of an environmental report at circa £500 is a cost we would like to avoid if we can.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

davidmcn

lebowski1980 wrote: »

Would a standard enviromental search satisfy this request?

You (or your solicitor) will need to ask Barclays what they mean by a "specialist environmental report" (if that's what they actually called it).

We are concerned that the cost of an environmental report at circa £500 is a cost we would like to avoid if we can.

A bog standard desktop report is quite a bit less than that.

Any clues about why the surveyor has recommended it? What's the history of the site, and how old is the property?

lebowski1980

Thanks for the reply

Yes, that is what they called it. I have asked the broker at Barclays for mire information but they said that's all they had.

The house is about 20 years old.
The estate agent did some digging today. They a house on the same street about to exchange which didnt require a report and the environmental report came back clean on that one. It's about 10 doors up from this one.
Our vendors have also said that no one they know on the street has ever needed this.

It just seems really odd. I get it if the enviromental searches came up with something but the bank wont even tell us what is in the report so we know what the concern is