Selling your house typically involves placing it on the open market with an Estate Agent where there are thousands of potential buyers. But what if you are not offering your property up to all these buyers? What if you are selling privately to another individual, perhaps even someone you who or a family member.

Estate Agent or Surveyor

Both provide valuations but for different purposes. An Estate Agent only has one objective: to convince you to market your property with them over one of their rivals. They have several ways to do this, beautiful brochures, a large client database, and the most common tool, saying they will achieve the highest price.

The majority will market your property at the very highest it could have a chance of achieving, dropping after a couple of months if there is little interest.

This is a far cry from the purpose you require, that is to determine the correct price to enable a fair transaction.

A surveyor, by contrast, has one clear and established aim: to provide their impartial opinion as to the price that would be achieved, if the property were to be put on the open market.

The RICS add numerous stipulations on any surveyor undertaking a valuation in their ‘Red Book’. These include :

• Declaring that there are no conflicts of interest
• Being MRICS or AssocICS qualified
• Being a Registered Valuer
• Stating that they have the appropriate expertise to undertake the instruction

Their report will also:

• be clear and easy to understand
• draw on a larger and more up to date sales database
• involve between 3 and 5 hours of work to arrive at the correct conclusion

Conclusion

Whilst it can be tempting to use an Estate Agent’s valuation, what you will receive will rarely be fit for purpose. In many instances, it simply won’t be allowed.

Even if you are selling to a close friend or relative, you will always be able to fall back on a Chartered Surveyor’s valuation report and be confident both sides will leave confident in the final figure.

Peter Barry Surveyors have been undertaking this type of work for near on 4 decades. Please drop us an email or call us if you would like further information or to chat to one of our experienced colleagues.