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“Not fit for purpose”

written by Dwyer3 on 29/04/2014

We are buying a grade 2 listed farmhouse built in 1560 with 5 acres of land. It has a swimming pool, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 4 toilets and is about 480 Square metres so it is not your normal 4 bedrromed house. We agreed a price of £860,000 wanting to put down £300,000 cash for deposit and legal expenses and obtaining a buy to let mortgage of £600,000. Country wide were asked to perform a valuation just to get the mortgage in place. They valued it at £860,000 which was OK. But as it is a buy to let the surveyor was required to state what the monthly rental value would be. We are aware that a similiar property was rented out last month which has less land, and no swimming pool for £4,000 per month. The surveyor from Counntrywide just put down that the monthly rental was likely to be £2,500 per month 60% less than what it should be rented out for. This means that the mortgage company has now only offered £400,000 and we need to find £200,000 for other properties. We complained to the mortgage company whose hands are tied as we chose Countrywide who are independent and on their panel of approved surveyors. Countrywide's regional manager will not budge on the £2,500 monthly valuation as he would have to admit that they are incompetent as a firm. It is pretty obvious that their valuer just went to Zoopla or Rightmove and just put into his survey what the average rental value was for a 4 bedroomed property and ignored the extra features of the property. I would not recommend Countrywide to anyone and will ensure that none of my property clients ever use them again. PS I audit and have lots of property company clients so Countrywide will loose in the long run!