Refresh home report valuation dropped

giantkatie

Hoping for some advice.

We recently offered on a house that came with a home report of £270,00. Since we knew the market in the area, we offered £230,00. We were negotiated up by the EA to £235,00, based on the HR value and were still reasonably happy with that. Now we've been told by the EA that the refresh home report will have a value of £235,00 because that's 'standard practice.'

Can anyone tell me if they've experienced this? Our conveyancer said it was 'unusual' for the valuation to drop so much but offered no practical advice. We need to carry out about £3000 worth of work to address the faults in the HR. Do we re-negotiate on price?

We also found out that our sellers owned a well-known estate agency and are friends with the EA and presumably the surveyor too. They have been delaying on the refresh for weeks now and we can only assume this is why as the property is empty.

davidmcn

If the surveyor's now aware that the best price achieved on the open market is actually £235k then I can see why they'd amend their valuation accordingly. Does it matter from your point of view? Lenders always use the lower of the valuation and the actual sale price as the value anyway.

jamesperrett

I presume this is in Scotland.

In England it is standard for surveys to value the property at the amount offered unless there are problems with the property. The only time that I've seen a surveyor mention a price higher than the offer was when I bought an old property which could have been improved and the surveyor mentioned a higher value if these improvements were carried out.

giantkatie

To be fair, you're right, nothing has really changed. We're just not sitting on the bargain that we thought we were. And we knew it was over-valued. It just seems a tad underhand. Thanks for the advice!

AdrianC

giantkatie wrote: »

To be fair, you're right, nothing has really changed. We're just not sitting on the bargain that we thought we were.

As you say - nothing's changed... Literally, the only thing that's changed is some digits on a piece of paper that will be forgotten by the time you move in.

Apart from that, it's the same property for the same price - so how is it "not the bargain you thought"?

giantkatie

This is true. We need to carry out some works to make the property good - damp proofing, rendering etc. We reflected that in our offer, based on the higher valuation.

AdrianC

giantkatie wrote: »

This is true. We need to carry out some works to make the property good - damp proofing, rendering etc. We reflected that in our offer, based on the higher valuation.

And the new valuation says that the property, in the condition inspected, is good security at your offer. You're paying a fair price for it.

It doesn't say anything more or less than that.

You're still paying the same price for the same figure - the valuation simply agrees that it's not too high a price.

Yalpsmol

They've said its worth 235 WITHOUT your 6k+ of work. You aren't being ripped off, nothing has materially changed.