Surveyor asking for value of the property?

tallac

A long time ago, I had a full building surveyor done which included a valuation of the property. They asked me from the outset what the accepted offer was for the property. It was quite an unusual number like £213,500 (or something like that). It was my first experience getting a survey done so I didn't think much of it. When I got the report back, I was extremely surprised to see that they had valued the property at exactly £213,500.

My initial thoughts were that they had just conned me and just given the value I had given without having done any work on the valuation part. I spoke to them at the time, and they said it was difficult to get an exact value but from their valuation work they felt the house was around that figure so they gave this figure instead of giving a figure that was almost at that mark. I felt a little cheated by the service but I moved on thinking it was just a one off bad experience.

I'm now going through the process again with a property and looking at getting a full survey done with a valuation of the property. The surveyors all are asking me for the value of the property and how much the accepted offer was. Is this normal practice across the board or have I just been unlucky with the surveyors I've been looking at? I still feel it's cheating to ask this of me from the outset. But is that a justified feeling?

blue_max_3

Careful what you wish for! It may be in your favour, or against.

Comms69

This is perfectly normal

RelievedSheff

Both of our valuations have come back at the same as we have offered on the properties. Unless the figures are wildly out I think this is common place.

Bossypants

This is pretty normal. They will look at comparable properties and decide whether they think the price you're paying is within reason. If so, they'll value it at that. House prices aren't an exact science, and if it wasn't done this way, two different surveyors could come up with two different figures, both likely in the same ballpark but quite possibly neither the exact figure you've agreed. This way of doing it avoids any confusion (i.e. of buyers relying on the surveyor to come up with some kind of perfect cast iron valuation which just doesn't exist).

Mahsroh

I had it recently for a remortgage application. The lenders surveyor rang me before they visited (it's a BTL, hence, I wasn't there when they did the valuation) and said "how much do you think it's worth?" I gave them a figure slightly higher than I needed for the product I was applying for. The valuation came back and surprise surprise it was exactly the same as the figure I gave them.

I guess they just use their professional judgement. If your figure is different to them by a couple of % they go with yours using benefit of the doubt. If it's way off then they provide their own valuation.  

tallac

Fair enough, I understand.

But how far away must their own valuation be from the agreed offer price before they give their true opinion?

If they are £1k away then rounding to the offer sounds fine. If they are £100k away then rounding is not acceptable. What about £5k away or £10k, must be some threshold, right?

RelievedSheff

tallac said:

Fair enough, I understand.

But how far away must their own valuation be from the agreed offer price before they give their true opinion?

If they are £1k away then rounding to the offer sounds fine. If they are £100k away then rounding is not acceptable. What about £5k away or £10k, must be some threshold, right?

It will be a percentage rather then a monetary figure.

[Deleted User]

At the moment valuations are coming in on some properties A LOT less than agreed asking price. They would be glad to get an asking / agreed price valuation if they were going ahead and needed that for mortgage purposes

davidmcn

RelievedSheff said:

tallac said:

Fair enough, I understand.

But how far away must their own valuation be from the agreed offer price before they give their true opinion?

If they are £1k away then rounding to the offer sounds fine. If they are £100k away then rounding is not acceptable. What about £5k away or £10k, must be some threshold, right?

It will be a percentage rather then a monetary figure.

Yes, usually a few percent. Usual rule of thumb (before it becomes professional negligence) is +/- 5% for "normal" residential valuations. I've known surveyors say they've tried to "push" the value a bit higher than they would have otherwise in order to help out with a transaction, but even then they will sometimes draw the line at less than the agreed price.

bs93

Our valuation when we bought was the exact figure we’d offered, seems to be the norm. I happened to see the same surveyor again (we sold the property shortly after buying it, after renovating) and he got up the old report and said he’d put a scope for anything from 125k to 160k. We never got to see that though, our valuation just said 129,500 as that’s what we paid