Any estate agents have any experience of this?

Hi there.

It is quite common in today's market for a surveyor to downvalue a property. Surveyors can be held accountable if it transpires that the values they gave were inaccurate, so understandably they are nervous about overpricing.

Surveyors generally work on comparables - in busy times I'd speak to two or three surveyors a day and give them pricing information on properties we had recently sold that were similar to the ones they were trying to value. It's a more difficult time for them now because values are varying so much and we're selling so few properties meaning very little comparable evidence.

So.. what do you do? Well firstly, your bank is right, they won't base their lending to you on more than their surveyor has quoted. Assuming you still want to go ahead with the deal, that leaves you with two option; change your surveyor's mind, or change your buying price.

In my experience, even in a better market, we've never been able to change a surveyors opinion on value, even when they are BLATANTLY wrong (in most cases they're not, in some cases they are). I've had chains collapse because one particularly arsey surveyor refused to see reason. In other case, I had a flat down-valued 3 months ago, despite me being able to provide 6 comparable properties that had all sold for more money that same month.

So - the next option - and the one I would suggest, is talk to the agent you're buying through. GIVE THEM A COPY OF THE REPORT (so they can see you are being honest - not all people are). If you were my purchaser I would realise that any other potential purchaser would also encounter the same problem and I would stress this to the Vendor. Hopefully, they would agree to move on price somewhat - maybe all, maybe half. What I would also do, if my Vendor was in a chain, would be to see if I could spread the shortfall throughout the chain, i.e. you pay less for the house you want, the vendor pays less for the one he's buying, etc. THIS IS VERY COMMON NOW.

Sorry that's so wordy! In a nutshell.. the surveyor is extremely unlikely to budge whatever you do, so contact the agent, give them the report, say you still want to buy but you can't at that price, and leave it to them.

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

Thanks cjb! Very wordy but exactly what I needed!

We took a photocopy of the report along to the estate agent yesterday - they are convinced it's an "out of town" surveyor i.e. he doesn't understand the area [shrug] but like you said I am not hopeful that they can get him/her to move on the valuation.

We're not going to take additional finance to cover the shortfall so it's down to the estate agents to convince the seller it's right for him to reduce the price.

Actually between starting this reply I have spoken to my husband and it sounds like the surveyor may have called on a local estate agent who has a bit of a grudge with the seller of this house [long story] but they used to manage it as a rental and then they fell out and when the house came on to sell they were surprised and annoyed that they weren't the chosen estate agents.

I don't think the guy selling the house is in a chain as such so at the end of the day he is just losing out on potential profit unfortunately

I agree with cjb's advice and it sounds like you've already followed it.

Unfortunately a bitter agent getting their own back when it comes to comparables isn't as rare as you'd hope.

All you can do now is hope the agent can talk their seller round - you've given them the evidence so the ball is in their court. What they need to remind the seller is that not only might the same thing happen again, but if someone asks them why it fell through, they are legally bound to tell the truth - which means admitting it was downvalued.

As cjb said this is really common at the moment. It's not worth giving up on getting the surveyor to change the value yet. Though some will not enter into any discussion some can be persuaded.

Once last year when the surveyor had a downer on the block the flat was in and valued it at £40k less than it was worth. As the lender would only consider this surveyor's report and the surveyor would not budge, or even talk to us, we ended up having to go to another lender and have a new survey done by a different company which valued it at the amount we wanted.

And just recently we had a survey on a house come back at market value but we needed it valued a bit higher. We had a chat with the surveyer and gave him some comparables and he did value it up another £8k (over market value!). Not much but was enough for what we needed.

They may well be right.. with more and more independants going bust, and bigger firms cutting their surveying staff, the ones that are left have wider and wider patches, meaning they don't have the local knowledge that previous guys did.

They may also be right about an agent with a grudge - as Charlotte says, it is very common for surveyors to rely on Estate Agents information for their initial valuations - and in a busy market it's possible to give 'bad' comparables as well as good if you were so inclined.

I would hold out hope for a good outcome though JG - in this market its common for properties to be downvalued, rightly or wrongly - and the agent will want a sale, so I would hope that he/she are working hard to try and reach a happy compromise for both you and their vendor - I know I would.

Fingers crossed x

Wow thanks all - it's so good to get none-biased opinions on this... It's hard to know what and who to believe at the moment.

We have spoken to our mortgage advisor who currently has 3 house valuations that she is having to appeal right now so it looks like it's a horrible trend at the moment.

The vendor has been informed and is shocked unsurprisingly and tomorrow we are dropping off some comparables to the mortgage company to take into account in their appeal again the valuation.

I now know why people say moving house is the most stressful thing! I thought planning my wedding was stressful - pah! it's nothing in comparison with this!

Thanks again all - I will keep you posted