Advice on property chain

oah276

Hi, 

We have recently had an offer accepted on a house and accepted an offer on our flat. Searches have started on both sides and we are porting our mortgage which has been approved. Our buyers are first time buyers and self-employed. The valuation on our property has not yet been instructed by the bank. Our EA is telling us the bank had two sets of questions for the buyers which have been answered and the delay has been due to the stamp duty. I am thinking that the bank would have said no by now if they were not going to lend? The our seller's EA is chasing me daily about if the survey has been booked and this is very stressful. Does anyone have any advice on what the action to take might be or the best option, I would really appreciate it.

fiveacre

You didn't say how recent is recent? It might take the bank a couple of weeks to make a decision, maybe longer if it needs manual review and is in a queue for the underwriter. Also bear in mind they may use a desktop valuation and not visit the property for a survey.

eddddy

So your seller's EA is chasing you - and asking if your buyer's valuation survey has been booked. Is that right?

If so, obviously, that's out of your control.



TBH, I think you have to treat this stuff as a bit of a game sometimes. Maybe put the onus back on the seller's EA by saying something like

"No - still no booking. You should phone my EA and ask them to chase my buyer to find out why their valuation isn't booked yet"


Then next time the seller's EA phones you say something like:

"Did you phone my EA? What did they say? What's the reason for my buyer's delay in booking the valuation?"

Antman27

fiveacre said:

You didn't say how recent is recent? It might take the bank a couple of weeks to make a decision, maybe longer if it needs manual review and is in a queue for the underwriter. Also bear in mind they may use a desktop valuation and not visit the property for a survey.

Apologies for hijacking this thread. Is there any criteria by which a bank would decide desktop vs survey? I'm a FTB and completely new to all this.      

Irishpearce26

Antman27 said:

fiveacre said:

You didn't say how recent is recent? It might take the bank a couple of weeks to make a decision, maybe longer if it needs manual review and is in a queue for the underwriter. Also bear in mind they may use a desktop valuation and not visit the property for a survey.

Apologies for hijacking this thread. Is there any criteria by which a bank would decide desktop vs survey? I'm a FTB and completely new to all this.      

Resource availability mainly and depending on the type/age.  Usually valuation surveys is a quick look around to confirm it has the number of bedrooms and bathrooms etc or it may even just be a drive by view.

oah276

Thanks for the responses. We accepted their offer on the 10th of May, they did not submit mortgage application until we had an offer accepted which was on the 24th of May. So in reality its been about 5 weeks since they submitted. Also there has been back and forth as the bank had two separate sets of questions which as I understand it the buyers have responded to all follow up questions from the banks.

fiveacre

Antman27 said:

Apologies for hijacking this thread. Is there any criteria by which a bank would decide desktop vs survey? I'm a FTB and completely new to all this.      

LTV being low enough that their risk is lowered would be the main one. The pandemic has probably pushed up the number of desktop valuations too. Some banks won't use them at all.

HSBC, as an example, may use desktop valuation up to 70% LTV, non-new builds, direct applicants, max. property value of £1m and max. mortgage £500k-£1m depending if London or not.

oah276

It does not help when the seller's estate agents is chasing me every two days and saying things like "its a bit worrying the buyer's have not had a survey done" what am I suppsed to say to that all it does is add to my stress levels. We are the only ones in selling and buying our buyers is not selling and our seller is not buying. I wonder if the bank would have already said no by now if they were not going to lend at all. 

badger09

Suggest you ask your EA to chase your buyers or their solicitor, for current position. Or as above, tell vendors EA to do it. 

MaryNB

badger09 said:

Suggest you ask your EA to chase your buyers or their solicitor, for current position. Or as above, tell vendors EA to do it. 

In my case the seller's EA was chasing me. My lender has instructed a surveyor but the surveying company was a bit slow to organise it. I got the surveying company's number from my lender and gave it to the EA. EA called them got a date sorted quite quickly. That might work for the OP, if of course a surveyor has been instructed.