Building Survey Timing

braken2000

Hi everyone

FTB'ers here. We have managed to put an offer in on a house and it has been accepted. We are both over the moon but understand this where the work now begins! Honestly did not expect the offer to be agreed so quickly. 

I have found a solicitor I am happy with and will be instructing them as soon as they clarify some questions I had for them. I have also let our mortgage provider know incase anything needs to happen at the moment. 

I have also found a surveyor which I would like to use however when I asked him about getting the building survey completed he has come back with something I did not quite expect. He stated that it is normal for the building survey to be completed after the house has been valued by the mortgage company. 

I can not see anywhere that gives a good idea of when to actually do the survey. I would have thought doing it prior to the mortgage application would be a better option should any problems be found? Or is it normal to do it after the valuation?

Very new to this so apologies if I have missed anything glaringly obvious. 

Thanks

AdrianC

If your surveyor is on the lender's panel, then he'd do both at the same time.

Apart from that, the order of doing things is simply down to prioritising timing vs spend in case of pulling out.

braken2000

Ah right that makes a bit more sense. 

So, assuming he is not on the lenders panel, it is more just to protect any potential loss?

SameOldRoundabout

Our surveyor was not on the lenders panel so we opted to have it carried out last week once the mortgage application was all finished. We’re unlikely to pull out unless the house is falling down, and I really wanted a particular local guy to look at it so was happy to wait. 

braken2000

Thank you

So would the mortgage get done before the solicitors in that case?

SameOldRoundabout

Usually people instruct them but tell them not to do work until the mortgage offer is in hand. If you want to ask them to start searches etc straight away that is entirely up to you, but it leaves you liable to pay their costs even if your mortgage doesn’t get accepted etc. I paid them as soon as our offer was approved subject to valuation, as we wanted to get a move on at that point!