Abortive purchase: Selling survey to new buyers

trex227

For me a lot of whether I would be interested buying your survey for half price depends on the property. If it’s a more recent property (say less than 40 years old) that is still largely as originally built I would probably be happy with your survey. If it’s an older house like mine that has had significant changes (1930s with significant layout changes both upstairs and downstairs that involved walls moving) then I wouldn’t be.

IHJ

AdrianC said:

IHJ said:

The point is surveys are basically for your information.

To an extent.

They also come with professional indemnity against the surveyor missing anything.

Most of the chains I have been in half the people haven't even got a survey done, it's not compulsory.

And such is their prerogative.

You're right - nobody NEEDS a survey.
Anybody with a modicum of property maintenance experience can take the time to do one for themselves, if they don't feel they need that professional indemnity backing. Even where people don't have that experience themselves, they usually know somebody who does.

Anybody who needs a mortgage will need a surveyor to produce a valuation for the lender, though, and the lender certainly won't want to skimp on a smallish amount of the buyer's money by taking your second-hand report.
 The survey is clearly on the house and recent, it's better than not having one!
Yes, it is. But it's not as good as having one done for you, because of the comeback (or lack thereof).

I have read many cases of people being happy to buy as it moves the process forwards and the stated amount is always 50%.

It's a random number. Many people may be willing to pay it. I wouldn't be.

But no why wouldn't we all just chuck thousands of pounds around for things that are completely outside our control and never reclaim any of it due to ridiculous legal clauses. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable system to me

Put the melodrama down. It doesn't help anything.

And, no, half the cost of a survey is not "thousands of pounds". Assuming you're talking about a standard HBR, then we're probably talking about a saving to the next buyer of a few hundred quid at most, perhaps less the cost of the valuation that their lender will still require.

I'm 34 weeks pregnant, with a toddler, trying to sort out a house move which has dragged on for ten months through Brexit and Covid and which will now take place with a newborn. So I apologise for the "melodrama". Of course I don't mean that the survey cost thousands, but as you will know if you have lost a purchase at the last minute the costs amount to thousands. And for all the mortgage offers I have had commissioned the lender has sent their own surveyor to value the property so I'm not really sure where this comes into anything. 

AdrianC

IHJ said:

I'm 34 weeks pregnant, with a toddler, trying to sort out a house move which has dragged on for ten months

Ah, the full Kevin McCloud...

Of course I don't mean that the survey cost thousands, but as you will know if you have lost a purchase at the last minute the costs amount to thousands.

Indeed. But that's part of what you take into account when deciding whether to continue with the purchase or not. If the vendor has pulled the sale from under you at the point of exchange, then it would usually be because their onward purchase was not happening, and there would be no sale to anybody - it would be unusual for there to be another buyer lined up while you're still looking...

And for all the mortgage offers I have had commissioned the lender has sent their own surveyor to value the property so I'm not really sure where this comes into anything. 

If you'd used a surveyor who was on the lender's panel, then their valuation would have been done at the same time as the survey, and you wouldn't have paid for two visits and reports.

thearchitect

davidmcn said:

Because it was commissioned by, and addressed to, you. The surveyors wouldn't owe any duty of care to other parties ie your purchasers wouldn't be entitled to sue the surveyors for negligence, which is a large part of the value of any survey. The surveyors may be willing to readdress it to the purchasers but they'll probably want a fee (though that ought to be cheaper than a whole new survey instruction). 

This is correct.  The purchaser of the survey would have to negotiate with the original surveyor to have it in some manner assigned to them, failing which the former would have no comeback against the latter in the event of problems.

silvercar

AdrianC said:

IHJ said:

The point is surveys are basically for your information.

To an extent.

They also come with professional indemnity against the surveyor missing anything.

Most of the chains I have been in half the people haven't even got a survey done, it's not compulsory.

And such is their prerogative.

You're right - nobody NEEDS a survey.
Anybody with a modicum of property maintenance experience can take the time to do one for themselves, if they don't feel they need that professional indemnity backing. Even where people don't have that experience themselves, they usually know somebody who does.

Anybody who needs a mortgage will need a surveyor to produce a valuation for the lender, though, and the lender certainly won't want to skimp on a smallish amount of the buyer's money by taking your second-hand report.
 The survey is clearly on the house and recent, it's better than not having one!
Yes, it is. But it's not as good as having one done for you, because of the comeback (or lack thereof).

I have read many cases of people being happy to buy as it moves the process forwards and the stated amount is always 50%.

It's a random number. Many people may be willing to pay it. I wouldn't be.

But no why wouldn't we all just chuck thousands of pounds around for things that are completely outside our control and never reclaim any of it due to ridiculous legal clauses. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable system to me

Put the melodrama down. It doesn't help anything.

And, no, half the cost of a survey is not "thousands of pounds". Assuming you're talking about a standard HBR, then we're probably talking about a saving to the next buyer of a few hundred quid at most, perhaps less the cost of the valuation that their lender will still require.

I was talking about a full structural survey not a cheaper house buyer's report.
The lender is only going to do a valuation not a survey. The lender just wants to be satisfied that the money lent is secure if they need to repossess. That is why they often do drive-by or even online valuations where the borrower has a very low loan to value. 

IHJ

silvercar said:

AdrianC said:

IHJ said:

The point is surveys are basically for your information.

To an extent.

They also come with professional indemnity against the surveyor missing anything.

Most of the chains I have been in half the people haven't even got a survey done, it's not compulsory.

And such is their prerogative.

You're right - nobody NEEDS a survey.
Anybody with a modicum of property maintenance experience can take the time to do one for themselves, if they don't feel they need that professional indemnity backing. Even where people don't have that experience themselves, they usually know somebody who does.

Anybody who needs a mortgage will need a surveyor to produce a valuation for the lender, though, and the lender certainly won't want to skimp on a smallish amount of the buyer's money by taking your second-hand report.
 The survey is clearly on the house and recent, it's better than not having one!
Yes, it is. But it's not as good as having one done for you, because of the comeback (or lack thereof).

I have read many cases of people being happy to buy as it moves the process forwards and the stated amount is always 50%.

It's a random number. Many people may be willing to pay it. I wouldn't be.

But no why wouldn't we all just chuck thousands of pounds around for things that are completely outside our control and never reclaim any of it due to ridiculous legal clauses. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable system to me

Put the melodrama down. It doesn't help anything.

And, no, half the cost of a survey is not "thousands of pounds". Assuming you're talking about a standard HBR, then we're probably talking about a saving to the next buyer of a few hundred quid at most, perhaps less the cost of the valuation that their lender will still require.

I was talking about a full structural survey not a cheaper house buyer's report.
The lender is only going to do a valuation not a survey. The lender just wants to be satisfied that the money lent is secure if they need to repossess. That is why they often do drive-by or even online valuations where the borrower has a very low loan to value. 

I was also talking about a full structural survey. Mortgage valuations have always been done separately on the properties we've proceeded with 🤷.