Mar 09 2008
How to parse “offer subject to survey”
What do you think “make an offer subject to survey” would mean?
- We get the place valued and then, if the lenders say aye, we make an offer.
- We make an offer and if the sellers accept it the place is valued and the lenders say aye or nay.
- We make an offer and get the place valued at the same time. Then the lenders say aye or nay and so do the sellers.
I assumed 2. The lenders seem to prefer 1. The actual state of affairs seems to be 3. Which is the only one that couldn’t be inferred from the text. What the hell? 1 and 3 are also the only ones that penalise the buyer if they don’t get accepted by the seller.
I hate house-buying. :-(
5 Responses to “How to parse “offer subject to survey””
You make an offer, and, should it be accepted, it becomes a binding contract iff the survey does not throw up anything untoward?
Yes….but if it isn’t accepted and 1) is the case then we are £310 or so worse off. Which is not a so pretty state of affairs. I too hate house-buying :-(
I thought you go to your bank (or whoever you want a mortgage from) and say “I’d like to get a house worth $amount and they say ‘yes that is ok’” then you go and make offers. Are you saying you make an offer on something before the bank has agreed they’ll give you the money?
3 kinda makes sense from the lenders POV, because they’re not just lending you money - they’re taking a risk on you. If you borrow money to pay for something that isn’t worth that much and default then they lose out.
The sellers being able to decide late in the process is cruddy, but that’s just how selling anything works. The sellers can dictate the terms.
if 3 then you don’t have the expense of the survey if your bid doesn’t prove the largest. But you have to bid without the benefit of the valuation good luck anyway - you should hear soon after noon if you’ve got it… what’s for you ‘ll no go by you, plenty more fish in the sea and other consoling utterances… then you really start offering silly money or even worse go for a new build
Ah liz you would think so with number 3 but actually the valuation costs £310 so we would lose out even if we didn’t get the place.
I had the most confusing conversation with the man from the mortgage yesterday who seemed, at every attempt at clarification, to be saying that the situation was 1 (i.e. we’d be paying for a valuation regardless of whether or not ours was the winning offer at closing date) but then at the end of the conversation said “let me know after closing tomorrow whether or not you’ve won and then if you had we’ll arrange a valuation”….i.e. 2, and what we’d thought all along ought to be what ‘subject to survey’ means. If we don’t like what the survey says then we can back out….but I believe that once an offer has been made that rather dictates what the market value of a property is so on a value perspective, unless it is falling down and we didn’t notice, there are unlikely to be any surprises.
I don’t know what he thought I was asking him but I clearly was not using the right words!