- Hi there,
I would like to share my story and perhaps get some valuable advise from the monesavingexpert community.
I purchased my flat in Q3/2010. According to home report it was valued at 145k. I paid 140K. 80% LTV.
The property was average tenement flat. The interior of the property was dated at the time of purchase and extensive redecoration was necessary. In particular the property had extremely poor single glassed wooden windows, cheap badly laid floor, standard cheap doors and very poor decoration of walls and ceiling throughout. However, it had new-ish central heating (installed 2008), which was a selling point to me. No smell of dump or anything like this was observer.
In the course of 2011 2012 the property undergone substantial improvement. In particular- All five single glassed windows were replaced by high performance (rating A) UPVC double glassing windows.
- All external walls in two bedrooms and sitting room were insulated with 50-75 mm high performance (rating A+) Celotex PIR insulation.
- All floors and skirting boards except the kitchen were replaced with high quality modern flooring and new skirtings.
- Four door out of 5 were replaced by stylish modern doors.
- All ceilings in Bedroom 2, lounge, hall and kitchen were re-decorated and bedroom 1 ceiling modernised.
- All relevant walls were re-plastered, two bedrooms, sitting room and the hall completely re-decorated with luxury wall coverings.
- 19 units of electrical sockets, light switches and light fittings were replaced with modern ones.
My current mortgage deal came to an end and interest rate ramped up from 3.39% to 4.79%.
I decided to re-mortgage my property and found a good deal.
At the moment I am in the process of disputing valuation of my property. I dont really know how it works, but there are some good thoughts on this web forum and some others.
My new lender to be, sent over their own valuators. A man in a suite and a notebook came over on one of the glorious and sunny days. He spent literally 30-50 seconds in the flat. Walked in, checked boiler, glanced at the bathroom, nocked on a random wall and walked away. His only words were, "mm, very modern!". I tried to talk to him with no much success and explain that the flat was substantially upgraded, new windows, insulation, doors, floor, blah blah blah.. In an few days time, the bank phoned back with valuation of 140k.
I believe that the valuation they put on the flat is far too low, I expected 145-150k, with my sentimental valuation of 155k in current market conditions. But 140k is ridiculous.
What I did next is mailed the bank with three statements:
- Details of the flat upgrade, promising to gather all the financial evidence of investment if needed.
- Details of 4 properties within 1km from my flat of similar size that were sold for 148-150k in the past 120 days.
- Actual sold property trend available at propertystatistics ros gov uk suggesting that average house price in my area decreased from £133.059 in 2009/2010 to £132.242 in 2011/2012 or -1% only.
On holiday at the moment, so cant do much Waiting for the banks reply But I anticipate they tell me to F.. Off. Any comments and suggestions on what else I can do are very welcome! Will keep community updated on the outcomes of the dispute.
One next step that I could think of is to phone and shout at the valuators and send them the same info as I sent to the bank.. Can I ask them e. g. methodology and details they used to value the flat?
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Challenging remortgage valuation.
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