Valuation survey advice please

[mothercourage]

We've just had a valuation survey carried out on our property by our buyer's mortgage company and it's come back at ?110k under the estate agent's recommended asking price. It's not a case of overinflation as 3 estate agents valued it within ?30k of each other and we plumped for the middle figure. I know that mortgage companies are traditionally conservative but ?110k seems excessive to say the least. What's more the figure is not based on the property's structural condition - that's all totally fine - it's been based on the fact that it has no vehicular access.

Just wondering if anyone has had any similar experiences lately? And if so, what did you do about coming up with a solution?

[gedwina]

We have had this before - usually you can appeal a valuation through the agents / Mortgage Company but this will cost. When you have a situation where there is a lack of access / strange lease conditions / boundary rights etc this can skew a survey if the surveyor is not local or is unsure. Recently they are being very conservative having been burnt in the last bubble.

However that does seem a large difference. First thing I would do is go to the agents and ask if they have any comparable examples of properties similar to yours and sold in your area in the last few months - this will give you an indication of who is at fault - the agents or the surveyors.

[mothercourage]

Thanks Gedwina, good advice. Our property is pretty much a one-off which makes it very hard to compare. As you say, it looks like we'll need to pay for a second opinion.

[tllm2]

There is a right of appeal ................... which may not cost, but submitting the estate agents valuations and any comparables they may have would be a good place to start.

[gedwina]

Another thought - years ago we had a flat we couldnt sell due to a very strange lease. We got Foxtons on the case and they managed to get us a fairly good price and managed to get the conveyancing through fairly quickly. They are a pain in the a**e and you pay a lot for them but they did sell the flat.

[Penguin68]

One aspect of vehicular access is about fire-engines etc. Clearly if fire-engines cannot access a property the mortgage company's risk is much higher - although since they can (and do) require buildings insurance of their mortgagees their investment should be protected.

There may also be an issue of how they calculate the value of a property - if they assume a standard value based on size etc. and then reduce it by a fixed %age factor for non-access then they may not have factored in e.g. unique design (you say your property is a one-off) or even the fact that the estate-agents' valuations may already have factored in non-access, and then perhaps increased valuation over standard because of other positive aspects. Finding out how the estate agents valued it, and what they took into account, might be a starting point.

Lenders are anyway very nervy nowadays because of the poor lending decisions they made in the past.