Buyer's surveyor wants us to vacate the property during survey

davilown

I would have expected my buyer to use a different surveyor if we'd been expected to leave the house 

Why? By that point of booking they would have already paid for the survey, so you’d expect them to pay again?

Again, this is a business transaction, not a personal look at the property you are selling. 

Weathergirl_76

Maybe the surveyor that is being used wants to take extra precautions due to Covid. Maybe they have someone living with them who is at higher risk. Maybe they have asked their reception to request the seller is not inside the property when they attend. It very possible you would not have had this request if it wasn’t for Covid. If is causes too much disruption, maybe ask if you can remain in one room and then vacate that room when they need to look in there. 

lady38_me

NatNat77 said:

I would have expected my buyer to use a different surveyor if we'd been expected to leave the house 

How exactly? If it's for a mortgage purpose, it's all arranged by a bank and a buyer has no idea who is doing the survey, what rules are, etc. If it's the bank rules - you can't change it and you are risking a sale. If it's arranged by you buyer independently, they have already paid for it a lot of money - do you expect them to pay the double again just because you don't like the COVID rules?

To the OP: i would strongly recommend to obey to their rules if you want to sell your house. Or think twice: what is more imortant to you: to sell the house or insist on your rules for 10 minutes? As previous contributors said: this is a business transaction and a bank is allowed to introduce some rules to protect their empoyees. They might turn arond and say 'stay at home, we don't mind' but migth not. You need to be ready for either.

From our own recent experience as a buyer. In December, the owner of the house we were buying just rudely refused to follow the rules and leave the house. The surveyor suggested at least to keep 2 m apart but the answer was: 'my house my rules, i will do what i want in it'. Well, at least this is what i was told when a furious mortgage adviser called me in the middle of a very important work meeting i needed to interupt. It took me a lot of time, emails, frustration and effort to arrange another one (and it all cost money!!!!) - just because we still wanted to proceed but it tested our patience to its limits. The nearest one could be arranged only in almost two months time  - they are all extremely busy. The long story short - they lost us as buyers and i am still very frustrated about our experience.

NatNat77

I would expect a surveyor to tell my buyer that is what they expect, and for my buyer to check with me first before going any further.
It isn't a COVID rule either.

They may have perfectly valid reasons for wanting an empty house but I may have perfectly valid reasons for wanting to stay in it. It is not reasonable or in most cases necessary to be expected to leave the house for hours, when there are other things you can do to mitigate any risk-which most reasonable people would be happy to do if asked

davilown

NatNat77 said:

I would expect a surveyor to tell my buyer that is what they expect, and for my buyer to check with me first before going any further.
It isn't a COVID rule either.

They may have perfectly valid reasons for wanting an empty house but I may have perfectly valid reasons for wanting to stay in it. It is not reasonable or in most cases necessary to be expected to leave the house for hours, when there are other things you can do to mitigate any risk-which most reasonable people would be happy to do if asked

Again, you’re missing the point. It’s a business transaction, not a personal one.

Scotbot

I suspect this is an admin person parroting the rules, they aren't going to say anything else for fear of not being covid compliant. In practice the actual surveyor will use common sense. 

lookstraightahead

NatNat77 said:

I would expect a surveyor to tell my buyer that is what they expect, and for my buyer to check with me first before going any further.
It isn't a COVID rule either.

They may have perfectly valid reasons for wanting an empty house but I may have perfectly valid reasons for wanting to stay in it. It is not reasonable or in most cases necessary to be expected to leave the house for hours, when there are other things you can do to mitigate any risk-which most reasonable people would be happy to do if asked

But it's not all about your comfort. The buyer has already given so much personal info to get this far, what if the buyer "insisted" on not sharing their financial position / personal circumstances etc?

I had a full structural survey on the property I bought. The owners went elsewhere to work as actually their work was confidential and they were more concerned about that.

Vendors tend to bother the surveyors with excuses as to why something is damp / not working etc. An empty house is much better.

NatNat77

I'm not missing the point of it being a business transaction, nor am I making it all about my covid rules or comfort. I just don't believe its reasonable or necessary to have to leave your house for hours when there are other options, that's all. That does not and did not stop my buyer sending a surveyor round, and nor should it.
So we'll just have to agree to disagree 😆

Falafels

I carried on working as usual throughout the lockdown (frontline healthcare) and when my buyer's surveyor contacted me to arrange a time/date for the Homebuyer's Report I asked if they preferred the vendor to be there or not, and was prepared to go along with either. To the OP, I strongly suggest you do the same.

This isn't a thoughtless, arrogant intrusion into your home - it's part of a business transaction during a pandemic when precautions were necessary if the housing market was going to function at all. Of course, we know more about the virus and its means of transmission, and many people have been vaccinated by now, so on the whole we are more relaxed than we were a year ago. This is reflected in the way that some surveyors are fine with the owners being around.

However, if there's another lockdown at very short notice, your buyer's surveyor will need to be operating according to the strict lockdown rules - so it makes sense that this was stipulated at the start. It would have been very difficult indeed if you'd been told at the last minute, with no opportunity for preparation. 

Really, you need to shrug this one off. 

GJB1954

We had the buyers surveyor do survey today. His company sent email yesterday confirming time etc and details of his requirements. All doors open and some windows, plus areas he needed access etc . PPE for him and us to wear masks , plus if possible to leave house while survey done. He phoned to say running late. When he arrived , asked for both back and front doors to be opened for a few minutes to ventilate house.This due to very windy weather. Front door closed and back door left open.  Then we went and sat in car. He was at our property for a max of 20 minutes.