Abbey Mortgages & Valuations

spottydog

Hi

I've been watching this site for a while & have decided to join. Hopefully someone here may be able to answer my query.

How long are Abbey taking to arrange surveys?

I agree the sale of my property over a month ago and I was told my buyers (no chain) applied to Abbey for their mortgage a couple of days later. Since then we have been told every day that the hold up is at abbeys end and there is nothing they can do to get it arranged any quicker.

Taking a month to arrange a mortgage survey sound unlikely to me, what do you think?

Mehullakhani

In my experience they have been really quick . I faxed through the signed documents on a wednesday, and my survey was monday . Estate agents etc were kept informed. The survey was this monday, and I got the results today

lemanie

Abbey are holding up our chain. Vendors existing mortgage with them but Abbey still managed to foul up their formal offer even though they had agreement in principle in March!?

Fairdo_2

Regarding surveys, they are not so busy that it would take a month to arrange.

If they are that busy they would sub contract the work out to other valuers and I know several firms who are twiddling their thumbs at the moment.

Time to play hard ball with the Estate Agent I think!!!

Conrad

spottydog wrote:

Hi

I've been watching this site for a while & have decided to join. Hopefully someone here may be able to answer my query.

How long are Abbey taking to arrange surveys?

I agree the sale of my property over a month ago and I was told my buyers (no chain) applied to Abbey for their mortgage a couple of days later. Since then we have been told every day that the hold up is at abbeys end and there is nothing they can do to get it arranged any quicker.

Taking a month to arrange a mortgage survey sound unlikely to me, what do you think?

As a broker my advice to you is be aware that such a time delay can often indicate the buyers mortgage is far from agreed. Might be that Abbey are digging over the case hence the delay. Agreements in principle are meaningless.
Ive been a broker 15 years and it is harder than ever to obtain a mortgage.

Having said all that, I find Abbey to be constistently among the slowest of all lenders and very frustrating as its virtually impossible to get through on the phone or email.

mparter

Conrad wrote:

Agreements in principle are meaningless.

If that's true, then what's the point in getting them? Why not just do a full application in the first place?

spottydog

Thanks for your replies, we've instructed the agent to readvertise as though we are new on the market from tomorrow and said we will go with any buyer who exchanges first (including the the ones).

MarkyMarkD

mparter wrote:

If that's true, then what's the point in getting them? Why not just do a full application in the first place?

Because to do a full application, you need to have found a property. And many people aren't comfortable looking for a property unless they've got a decision in principle.

GDB2222

spottydog wrote:

Thanks for your replies, we've instructed the agent to readvertise as though we are new on the market from tomorrow and said we will go with any buyer who exchanges first (including the the ones).

You should **always** insist on this approach, regardless of buyers agreeing a purchase. Otherwise, you are in the hands of the buyers.

Trouble is the estate agents don't want the hassle of keeping on showing the property.

As an example, I had a firm of estate agents who got an offer and then, against my instructions, stopped showing the property. Buyer's survey said the property did not quite value up. The agents told me to reduce my price. I withdrew instructions from them, found another firm, and sold it two days later for more than the original asking price to a cash buyer.

blossom30

My last house move in 2001 was not a pleasant one due to the incompetence of Abbey (Nationals)' call centre staff. There was a delay on getting a survey done on the first property we decided on and because this took some time we decided when we lost that property and wanted a survey done on another,:cool: we decided to obtain a survey ourselves which you can legally do....the only thing is you have to get a list of Abbeys' approved surveyors, we just used the last one that they used. We not only cut out the middleman i.e. Abbey but we saved about £30 in doing so. The survey report was done with immediate effect cutting out any third party. I will certainly do it this way when we move again.