Lender Valuation

When reviewing your mortgage application, your lender may enlist the specialist advice of a RICS Valuer to help them decide how to fund the property you are buying, or remortgaging.

At SDL Surveying, we are instructed to provide valuations for a range of national lending organisations.

What is a Lender/Mortgage Valuation?

A mortgage valuation is a report based on a limited visual inspection of a property by a trained and regulated RICS Valuer. The report includes the Valuer’s opinion on the value of the property, and solely reflects issues which are considered significant enough to affect value or to cause concern for the mortgage lender.

Should I book a home survey?

While many people mistakenly call a mortgage valuation a “mortgage valuation survey”, it’s crucial to understand that a mortgage valuation is not a survey and is for the lender’s purposes only.

A mortgage valuation tells you little about the building’s state of repair, and it won’t necessarily point out structural problems that you may have to pay to fix further down the line. What’s more, you may not even receive a copy of a report or be party to advice contained within it.

As you can see, it’s key to understand the difference between what a mortgage valuation is and what a home survey is. Furthermore, this is why it is important for you to have your own survey carried out before you enter a contract to buy a home. By providing you with information about the condition of the property, a home survey can be invaluable in helping you to avoid expensive surprises and to re-negotiate the sale price so that it fairly reflects the cost of necessary repairs.