Every week, three our four people tell me that they are having a survey when it is patently obvious that they are not.  

What staggers me is that I've heard so many financial advisors and Building Society staff referring to a Mortgage Valuation as a "survey" - nothing could be further from the truth.

In the olden days, an expression used by my eldest daughter to describe the period before she was born, but by my description meaning the early part of my career, I did a tremendous amount of mortgage valuation work for Building Societies.

They were the days when the buyers didn't get a copy of the Report and I knew that all I had to do was produce a brief report for the Building Society, maybe one or two pages, and, in a very small space on one of those pages, list a number of pertinent points summarising major defects.

I take the cynical view that the purpose of a Mortgage Valuation is to establish if the building exists, if it will remain standing for the term of the mortgage and, if the buyer goes up the wall and defaults on the mortgage, the Building Society will at least get their money back when they repossess.

The Mortgage Valuer does have a duty of care to the borrower, but it's pretty much limited.

I'm not knocking mortgage valuers as they have a professional job to do and they are effective in their specific role, but they do a specific task in assessing suitability of property for mortgage security purposes.

They are not 'surveying' the property for the buyer, they are valuing the property for the lender.

Here are a couple of examples.

A couple of weeks before Christmas 2007, a Solicitor rang and asked me to go out and see one of his Clients houses where they'd reportedly moved in and the ceilings fell down very soon afterwards.

Surprise, surprise, the new owner wanted to have a go at the Building Society "Surveyor".

My advice to the Solicitor, well - I knew what the problem was. They bought an old house and hadn't had a survey. It was not the role of the mortgage valuer to go into details of condition, they took the risk of buying 'uninformed' and my advise was simple and to the point.

I quoted a fee to provide a report but was honest enough to tell him that his Client didn't have a leg to stand on and why.

Another tale.

During 2007, I carried out a private survey for new investor Client. A young couple were selling a terraced house in former pit village. They only paid for a mortgage valuation when they bought the house, thinking that they could rely upon it.

When I walked into the house and felt what was going on beneath my feet under the fitted carpet I knew that there was a big problem with the concrete floor.

Sulphate attack to concrete confirmed by specialists, repairs carried out by local builder and cost of £5,200 paid by the young couple who had little enough as it was.

My Client bought the house, but consider the effect on that young couple selling. If they had commissioned a private survey when they purchased just 2 years beforehand they would not have experienced the horror of the problem being found later and the financial complications.

2007 selling price - £74,000. Repair cost - £5,200. Ouch!

So what's the point of all of this!

As with everything else in this world, you get what you pay for.

Save a couple of hundred pounds by only having a Mortgage Valuation and you run the risk of finding out something about the house later that you probably won't like because it's an expense that you hadn't budgeted for.

If anyone uses the term "survey" to you, check it out first and make sure that you know what you are getting.

If in doubt ring us and talk it through.

Every day, in every house we see, there are problems noted. Some big. Some small. Do you want to take the risk?