Home Valuation - issue
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N10k

Original Poster:

5,146 posts

257 months

Sunday 4th April 2010
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Recently we put our home up for sale after having 3 valuations. We ended up going with the middle valuation, we had lots of interest very quickly and it sold 4 days later at 2k below the asking price. We have since found a home we love and a survey has been done on our home and the house we found.

We found out Thursday that the Surveyor has de-valued our home by £10,000, the estate agent quickly put a case together showing 7 other properties like ours including 1 which sold for £5,000 more than what ours did round the corner.

The surveyor seems to be digging their heels in and isnt budging on the valuation (bear in mind that we sold our home only for it to fall through at the final second last year for £5,000 less than what we sold it now and they had a survey done and didn't have any problems with the price).

What can we do?
Has anyone else had this issue?

Further up the chain someone is purchasing a reposition and there for the time line needs to be very swift, but i cant help but think that its all going to come crushing down. The buyers of our home have since contacted me that they are happy to pay the price they agreed still, but with the easter break we have lost 2 working days.


Thanks

w3llus

21 posts

192 months

Sunday 4th April 2010
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Thanks very much Tonker

davidjpowell

18,579 posts

206 months

Sunday 4th April 2010
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
It would be unusual for the Surveyor to know how much the purchaser is looking to borrow. Most valuers will pay lip service at least to considering other evidence as long as it is sold and completed. If it is not forget it.

Your purchaser will need to look into this via their lender/broker to get anywhere I suspect.

Fruitcake

3,850 posts

248 months

Sunday 4th April 2010
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davidjpowell said:
It would be unusual for the Surveyor to know how much the purchaser is looking to borrow.
Not in my experience it's not.

Vron

2,541 posts

231 months

Monday 5th April 2010
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There are many threads on this subject over at the moneysavingexpert forums. Seems to be that Surveyors are deliberately undervaluing to stop the sale.

For example, my Sister bought a repo in April last year, it last sold in 2007 for £600K. She paid £375K (it isn't showing on LR Records either - another way the government is hiding repo's and low prices). The Natwest valued it at £200K - the plot is worth more than 200K. She is a Dentist with massive income and tiny LTV so could proceed anyway - she paid for another Survey to challenge NatWest and they did agree to up to £375K in the end.

Road Pest

3,123 posts

220 months

Monday 5th April 2010
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Yep, will be happening a lot. A house isn't what someone will pay for it anymore (unless by cash). It's value is what the surveyor working for the Lender says it's worth. I do vals for a mortgage broker, if you'd like to PM me the details I'd be happy to take a look.

w3llus

21 posts

192 months

Monday 5th April 2010
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So am i able to challenge the valuation or should the buyers be doing that?

Road Pest

3,123 posts

220 months

Tuesday 6th April 2010
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w3llus said:
So am i able to challenge the valuation or should the buyers be doing that?
You can try but don't fancy your odds.

TimCrighton

996 posts

238 months

Tuesday 6th April 2010
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Ask for a copy of the valuation report. It could just be the purchaser trying to 'pull the wool', we've had that from purchasers before - your agent should hopefully deal with the valuer direct.

Otherwise the best that the agent can do is provide a whole load of comparable evidence to show the surrounding values. As stated above these need to be completed values and not sales that are under offer. It may also be worth breaking it down on a per sq ft basis if this helps your case.


leeb

1,074 posts

265 months

Tuesday 6th April 2010
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This wont help you one bit, but we agreed a price to buy this place at (Dec 09) and was all set for completion. Valuer came in and valued it at £15k under asking price (10k less than agreed purchase price).

The bank simply said, you need to find another £10k, quick (as in a week) or the vendor needs to drop their price.

It was mentioned that the valuations now all go on a central database which is refered to at any later date, so as they wanted a quick sale, they dropped the money. Result for me in the end, but it was quite a big kick in the nuts for the vendor. Fortunately......well.....it was a probate sale so they werent reliant on that money for a deposit.

Good luck! wink