Timber-framed house - desktop valuation?

leypt1

Hi,

We have had an offer accepted on a timber-framed house (ex local authority, early 1970s build). 

We paid £200 for a Halifax mortgage valuation on the understanding that a physical assessment would be carried out, and that we'd then receive a report on the findings - we've been quite anxious about buying a timber-framed house and so were hoping that this would give us peace of mind, as a lender would have actually seen the property and had a poke around before deciding they wanted to lend. 

We did also consider other lenders which would lend without too much inspection, e.g. HSBC (who just ask for a slightly higher deposit to cover their risk), but we wanted to  bottom out whether the house is "properly" mortgageable for when it comes to selling it on.

As it turns out, Halifax are only going to do a desktop valuation - our broker gave slightly incorrect advice and was apologetic about this. She's been very helpful otherwise and we'd still like to go with Halifax due to low rates and fast timescales.

She did try and get Halifax to change their valuation to a physical one, but it turns out that this decision is delegated by the lender to their survey company, which apparently decided that a desktop would be fine.

My questions are:

-On what basis did the surveyor make the decision that a desktop valuation would be fine? What information about the house do they have access to?

-If the surveyor has made this decision, can we be assured that the house is "properly" mortgageable (as opposed to mortgageable if buyers only if provide a high deposit or go to a specialist lender)

-Why would they not want to inspect it, especially if the lender's policy is conditional on certain things being physically present or absent in the house?? Below is a link to different lender's policies and it says that Halifax wouldn't lend on a property with cavity wall insulation. When we did a second viewing, we did spot a bit of what looked like mineral wool poking out of a bit of the wall. Would the survey company know about this? Should we tell them??

https://www.onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk/property-types/timber-framed-property/ 

We're basically just very concerned that when we eventually sell the house, the buyer's lender will take a more stringent approach and the house will be unsellable. We'd rather have a more stringent approach now so that we can make a proper decision about whether to go ahead.

Thanks for any advice!

davidmcn

It would make more sense to get (and rely on) your own survey rather than worry about the standard to which the lender is making their valuation decision.

leypt1

davidmcn said:

It would make more sense to get (and rely on) your own survey rather than worry about the standard to which the lender is making their valuation decision.

We will be, and have already identified a specialist company (who have asked us to wait to find out whether the property is mortgageable before we pay £1400 for their service).

But our issue is that a decent survey won't guarantee that the house won't fall foul of lender's conditions, if our future buyer's lender actually bothers going to look at the house

Hence my questions about whether the lender's process is actually a guarantee of mortgagability, especially since the survey company seem to have missed the cavity wall insulation, which is apparently a red line for the lender

davidmcn

leypt1 said:

davidmcn said:

It would make more sense to get (and rely on) your own survey rather than worry about the standard to which the lender is making their valuation decision.

We will be, and have already identified a specialist company (who have asked us to wait to find out whether the property is mortgageable before we pay £1400 for their service).

But our issue is that a decent survey won't guarantee that the house won't fall foul of lender's conditions, if our future buyer's lender actually bothers going to look at the house

Hence my questions about whether the lender's process is actually a guarantee of mortgagability, especially since the survey company seem to have missed the cavity wall insulation, which is apparently a red line for the lender

But your survey will tell you whether or not it has cavity wall insulation? And in general will tell you whether it is mortgageable from a surveyor's point of view.

leypt1

davidmcn said:

leypt1 said:

davidmcn said:

It would make more sense to get (and rely on) your own survey rather than worry about the standard to which the lender is making their valuation decision.

We will be, and have already identified a specialist company (who have asked us to wait to find out whether the property is mortgageable before we pay £1400 for their service).

But our issue is that a decent survey won't guarantee that the house won't fall foul of lender's conditions, if our future buyer's lender actually bothers going to look at the house

Hence my questions about whether the lender's process is actually a guarantee of mortgagability, especially since the survey company seem to have missed the cavity wall insulation, which is apparently a red line for the lender

But your survey will tell you whether or not it has cavity wall insulation? And in general will tell you whether it is mortgageable from a surveyor's point of view.

We are more interested in whether it's mortgageable from our lender's point of view, thanks. By not doing an inspection they've missed vital information and so we don't understand the decision to go desktop.

leypt1

Can someone please help me to move this thread to the mortgages board? I just want an answer to my questions.

MSE_ForumTeam5

We've moved the thread for you 

leypt1

MSE_ForumTeam5 said:

We've moved the thread for you 

Thank you

alanyau88

Need more details to answer this properly.
Is the property timber framed with brick or block skin?  
Is it a completely 100% timber frame house?
What construction name is it if known?
Does it have any cladding on the walls?
How many houses of the same construction are sold privately from the council?
How many houses of the same construction were sold in the past 12 months?

All houses are mainly mortgageable.  It depends on whether it is mortgageable through a high street lender, or an expensive specialist lender.  The reasons I guess you are concerned is the sale-ability of the property when you come to sell it in the future as that is largely dependent on the mortgage-ability of the property.  Most people that has lived in a timber framed house would tell you that there are no issues whatsoever and these houses are built all over the world.  It seems to be only the UK that has a stigma against such houses.

leypt1

alanyau88 said:

Need more details to answer this properly.
Is the property timber framed with brick or block skin?  
Is it a completely 100% timber frame house?
What construction name is it if known?
Does it have any cladding on the walls?
How many houses of the same construction are sold privately from the council?
How many houses of the same construction were sold in the past 12 months?

All houses are mainly mortgageable.  It depends on whether it is mortgageable through a high street lender, or an expensive specialist lender.  The reasons I guess you are concerned is the sale-ability of the property when you come to sell it in the future as that is largely dependent on the mortgage-ability of the property.  Most people that has lived in a timber framed house would tell you that there are no issues whatsoever and these houses are built all over the world.  It seems to be only the UK that has a stigma against such houses.

Thanks for your response. For the top 3 answers - we don't know. We asked the seller and also contacted the council (building control and the ALMO), but they couldn't/wouldn't provide this information.

Is it possible that the lender/their surveyor could know the answers to these questions? If they don't, and if the answers are important, wouldn't an inspection be the best way for them to find out?

IIRC every wall in the house sounds hollow when banged. The very end wall on the row of terraces is made of brick.

There are some external planks of UPVC cladding on the front of the house. 

Almost all (8/10) have been sold off privately. Rightmove sale history for the road shows that the last sale was completed in November 2019. The estate agent seems to think this was bought with a mortgage. The vendors of "our" house bought with cash.

The part highlighted in bold summarises our concerns exactly, thank you The house itself seems to be in reasonable condition apart from some poor quality double glazing and a couple of cosmetic cracks, and we'll be getting a very in-depth survey done from a specialist company - so many tools and probes that the report *should* be nearly caveat and guesswork-free.

K_S

@leypt1 The lender's valuation is only for the purpose of the lender assessing the security property. You can't take any assurance of future mortgageability from that unfortunately.

Based on the information they have and the LTV of the loan, Halifax is happy to lend on the basis that they have sufficient security in the property to cover the risk of having to repossess the house, that's all it is.

Your concern is understandable and you can rely on your specialist survey to give you any assurance over and above that.