Kensington Mortgage Valuation - Downgraded?

PowerHandle

Hi, 

I'm in the process of buying a property, all going well until the valuation report was received today. The valuation suggests the house is worth £220,000 whereas we offered £236,000. I know the area extremely well, I've watched house prices there for the last 15 years and especially closely for the last two years. SSTC and Land Registry Sold prices on similar properties suggest that our offer of £236k is already slightly low-balling the property, and understandably the seller is absolutely unwilling to drop any further when they have already turned away higher offers since agreeing to sell to us. The valuation apparently used at least one property from March 21 as a comparator (sold for £211k) and two from October 21 but doesn't seem to take into account that prices are climbing. There is nothing close that is even close to £220k for the property we are looking at, in fact there are no 3 bed properties at all for less than £290k right now in that area.

Do we have any options? Can we appeal the valuation or ask for a different one to be carried out?

PowerHandle

After digging into this a bit more I've found it was Connells who did the survey and their Trustpilot reviews don't make for good reading:

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/connells-surveyors.co.uk

The google reviews all say the same too. Speaking with the seller the surveyor did almost exactly what the reviews said - a couple of minutes looking at the house and gone. 

Really worried that I'm going to lose this house now because of a surveyor making a pigs ear of the survey.

Noneforit999

PowerHandle said:

After digging into this a bit more I've found it was Connells who did the survey and their Trustpilot reviews don't make for good reading:

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/connells-surveyors.co.uk

The google reviews all say the same too. Speaking with the seller the surveyor did almost exactly what the reviews said - a couple of minutes looking at the house and gone. 

Really worried that I'm going to lose this house now because of a surveyor making a pigs ear of the survey.

I believe there is an option to appeal the valuation but whether you will get anywhere is another matter. Many lenders use Connells as the valuer so even if you tried a different lender, you may find yourself in the same position.

I guess this is the reality of buying somewhere where few houses come on the market so they can only use examples from 12 months ago which clearly are not comparable. Bear in mind the valuator is not going to use current houses for sale in terms of a comparison, those houses have not sold so have not had lender valuations etc. They will only use houses which have properly sold through to completion.

Did they come inside the house to look?

PowerHandle

Apparently yes, but only for a minute or two. He's also made a mistake regarding an alteration that has been claimed to be carried out but in fact is nothing of the sort - apparently the front door used to be on the side of the house but there is absolutely no evidence that it ever has been. The house is one of a number of similar builds and some were built with door on the side, some were built with door on the front. 

Regards pricing, a quick search of the Land Registry shows several similar houses sold in the £220-250k bracket since June 2021, including two of the same build at £240k/£250k.