Mortgage Valuation Fee - can I get a refund?

sacharussell1996

My partner and I are both first-time buyers. We found our perfect property - close to family, close to transport links, nearby to a good school and next door to a corner shop (which we saw as a positive). We already live nearby, are familiar with the shop and staff and have a good relationship with them. 

We have an independent mortgage advisor who sourced us a mortgage with Precise Mortgages. They charge £410 for a valuation fee which we paid via debit card. They completed a valuation and came back with a value £0 due to it being next door to a shop. This could have been seen via a quick search on Google Maps - they (both our mortgage advisor and the lender) had the full address of the property to be mortgaged. We didn't mention the fact that it was next door to the shop as nobody asked and we had no idea this could even be an issue in the mortgage application process. 

Do you think we have any chance of a refund for the valuation fee? At no point were we told by anyone that being near to a shop would be an issue, they had the full address of the property so could have done a simple Google search and seen this, and told us sooner. We would not have even bothered to put an offer in on the property if we had known that being next to a shop would mean an automatic no from the lender. How can they charge £410 to drive past the house and see its next to a shop?

K_S

@sacharussell1996 Afaik, Precise doesn't have an "automatic no" policy for property adjacent to commercial. Where there isn't an 'automatic no', properties close to commercial are almost always subject to valuer comment. No two such properties are comparable.

For your reference, here are the 'automatic no' property types for Precise resi.

Just to be clear, I'm not absolving the broker of any blame as I don't know what they did or didn't do. In their place I would have looked up the property on street view to check for any unusual features relevant to lenders, called up a few shortlisted lenders to check how they view properties adjacent to corner shops and take it from there.

Your broker might have done all this and received a reasonably positive response from Precise (no lender will ever guarantee a positive valuation), in which case there's not much more they could have done.

sacharussell1996

@K_S

Thanks so much for your comment. When our broker/advisor passed on the information from the valuation he said that he "doesn't look at the properties to look for issues, just passes on the address of the property". Not really sure where we stand here. Do you have any advice? We asked if it was possible to appeal and he said no. We asked if we could get a refund, he said no but could see if he could get us a discount on the next valuation on the next property. 
£410 is about a third of my partners monthly salary it's not something we can just fork out on a whim.

K_S

sacharussell1996 said:

@K_S
Thanks so much for your comment. When our broker/advisor passed on the information from the valuation he said that he "doesn't look at the properties to look for issues, just passes on the address of the property". Not really sure where we stand here. Do you have any advice? We asked if it was possible to appeal and he said no. We asked if we could get a refund, he said no but could see if he could get us a discount on the next valuation on the next property. 
£410 is about a third of my partners monthly salary it's not something we can just fork out on a whim.

@sacharussell1996 I try to avoid criticising other brokers on the forum as I only have a limited view of what they have done. But speaking for myself, I always ask the client if there's anything unusual and look up the property on rightmove and/or street-view to give it a once over. The client (understandably) doesn't always know what to look for. And personally, I would expect brokers to do at least this much while researching lenders for the case.

But if it's one of those volume brokers who do 30-40 mortgages a month per advisor, they have very little time to spend on a case. Soon as a client has given a go ahead for a DIP/app, they then pass it on to an administrator to key. These brokers rarely have the time to do all this and their income is unlikely to be directly tied to the outcome of the case, so these kind of mistakes aren't uncommon, unfortunately. 

I'm a bit unclear, has he said this property is unmortgageable? Or are you strictly limited to Precise for whatever reason? I would honestly be surprised if a terraced house was unmortgeable simply because it was adjacent to a normal corner shop. Of course there might be other elements that present an issue. Care to share the rightmove ad?

sacharussell1996

@K_S
Burdon Street, North Shields, NE29 6HW

It won't let me share the link for some reason but you should be able to find it with that address.

I believe we are quite limited with regards to lenders and Precise has been the only one to offer us an AIP and proceed with the application. We are applying for a joint mortgage. I am on a 0-hours contract (but have an excellent credit score), and my partner has bad credit (but a full-time permanent job) so we are considered 'high risk'. Particularly at the moment, I guess. This mortgage broker has been the only person that has managed to find us a mortgage. We have had 2 advisors that have told us we won't get a mortgage and couldn't even get is an AIP. So we feel like we are pretty tied to this broker too, aswell as the lender. His advice is to find another property but this is the only one we've found in a year of searching that we are happy with. 

Really appreciate your advice. 

Sacha

K_S

@sacharussell1996 If you're tied to Precise then I suppose there's no option but to move on property-wise. Good luck!