Being driven a bit up the wall by our lender's valuation.
It's a part timber frame property, and there is one small area where there's a little bit of timber decay, and they've flagged that as a major issue and refused to put a valuation on the house until we have a 'specialist timber and damp contractor' look at it, diagnose and estimate remedial costs. Fact is this is certainly not an actual structural issue (my Father in Law has renovated a black and white recently including replacing an entire wall and said there's no way it's more than a superficial issue), and our LTV will be around 40%. Maddening.
Now we've got a bona fide building surveyor who will be going in a few weeks and fully assessing the whole house, including a thorough review of all timbers and damp as standard. I am very loathe to send in a contractor for timber and damp who is likely to point out as many issues as possible and give me a long list of expensive, probably unnecessary and potentially even damaging treatments (if you know anything about damp-proofing companies and old houses you'll know exactly what I mean), which I then have to share with my lender. I would much rather my building surveyor who knows how old houses work and doesn't stand to benefit from hamming up the issue, to cover this as he would normally, and have that satisfy the lender.
Problem is, the lender tells me they are wholly reliant on their valuer, who has asked for a contractor specifcally. They can't call the valuer, or give me a phone number, and can only communicate with them via a formal email request. So I asked them to request that the valuer changes their request to say that we should ensure timber and damp is fully covered during a level 3 RICS approved building survey, and I included some of my rationale above.
In the meantime I did contact some timber and damp specialists. I called one to basically sound him out, and I think I offended him a bit by saying that I was worried about getting back a report which overdiagnosed. I suppose in hindsight that's the sort of response I wanted. I still really don't want to pay 400 quid for something that will be assessed in my building survey though.
The lender's valuer's then response came:
Notes:After a review of the information provided and my further research, I have concluded that
this level of information is outside the scope of an MV, as per the valuation report advise - There is evidence
of dampness and timbers in contact may be defective. You should instruct a specialist damp and timber
treatment contractor to investigate the full extent.
Which reads to me that they didn't properly read my request and just doubled down, giving no rationale for insisting on a contractor rather than surveyor, and all they really said was that it's outside their scope and they don't know what they are on about. So I've had to request the lender to send a more succinct and pointed version of my original request.
Of course this takes days back and forth. Just having a rant about how a mortgage valuer somehow holds the keys to everything, yet is uncontactable and incompetent at the same time.
This isn't necessarily on our critical path yet as the solicitor has plenty to get on with in the meantime, but I'm starting to wonder if I should just got ahead with the T+D contractor survey
