Countrywide Surveyors
- Thread starter Mikey
- Start date
Waiting for one right now (Between 12 - 3pm) to come value my house to hopefully complete my remortgage. The house has been fully renovated since purchasing it so I am hoping it has increased enough in value to get a good interest rate.
They surveyed the house we bought it March, no problems with report or valuation but we did get a HBR rather than a valuation.
AFAIK in order to product a HBR the surveyor has to be a member of RICS and operate within their guidelines, as such the company they work for will have little input apart from the organisational side.
AFAIK in order to product a HBR the surveyor has to be a member of RICS and operate within their guidelines, as such the company they work for will have little input apart from the organisational side.
Had a couple of valuations by these guys. The most recent was undervalued by around 10% or up to 20% if you listened to local estate agents.
Didn't know the local market (came from 30 miles away) and cited similar recent sales in the area for comparison. There are no houses like mine in the area and certainly none that had sold in the previous 5 years.
Didn't know the local market (came from 30 miles away) and cited similar recent sales in the area for comparison. There are no houses like mine in the area and certainly none that had sold in the previous 5 years.
I imagine (no evidence/experience for this) that a surveyor is much more likely to undervalue a property (compared to an agent) because they don't want to be in a position whereby they might be held liable by the lender in future if tenant gets into difficulty repaying their mortgage etc.
In the above case, where there are "no houses like mine in the area and certainly none that had sold in the previous 5 years" then it seems even more likely to me that they would play it safe, as they have so few points of reference.
In the above case, where there are "no houses like mine in the area and certainly none that had sold in the previous 5 years" then it seems even more likely to me that they would play it safe, as they have so few points of reference.
As above really. Surveyors have a tendency to play it safe to avoid liability.
More often than not the survey depends on what they can access without moving anything belonging to the vendor. As such vendors can often hide things they don't want the surveyor to see. The HBR we had with Countrywide was worthless, as it was riddled with reasons why they couldn't inspect certain aspects of the property. Not entirely their fault, but of little real benefit to us.
More often than not the survey depends on what they can access without moving anything belonging to the vendor. As such vendors can often hide things they don't want the surveyor to see. The HBR we had with Countrywide was worthless, as it was riddled with reasons why they couldn't inspect certain aspects of the property. Not entirely their fault, but of little real benefit to us.
We used them as our mortgage company insisted. They missed really obvious issues and the report was useless. It said we had a shared garden (we don't) and that it didn't have a garage (we do). I complained and the report was reissued saying the garage was all safe and looked fine inside, spoke to the owner and estate agents and the only garage key was hidden in the house so he'd lied and never looked in it. Complained and heard nothing back.
After we moved in we instantly saw windows that needed replacing and an obvious leak that had been missed.
After a few emails they sent round someone to look at everything and he reported back to HO. Didn't really get anywhere so I tweeted them and went a bit public and ended up getting the full cost of the survey refunded and compensation to repair the bits they'd missed.
After we moved in we instantly saw windows that needed replacing and an obvious leak that had been missed.
After a few emails they sent round someone to look at everything and he reported back to HO. Didn't really get anywhere so I tweeted them and went a bit public and ended up getting the full cost of the survey refunded and compensation to repair the bits they'd missed.
