… maybe, possibly, probably not.
By this time tomorrow, we will at least know whose mantelpiece the World Cup trophy won’t be sitting on come Sunday. It will come as no surprise to my adoring fan club that many years ago I was something of an accomplished (football) player. In other disciplines The Chesh still is in the premier league (no sniggering at the back thank you). Every year, myself and my fellow sportsmen would go on tour to deepest, darkest Cornwall (trust me, some people think the Welsh are odd… but …) and one year we were playing a team where at least half the players had 12 fingers and pitch side there was a gentleman who who was giving our best player (me) some stick.
Known for my restraint in not retaliating to the slings and arrows thrown by, in this instance, someone who had been rejected by The Wurzels for looking too ‘rustic’, I asked him, “I suppose you are the $%*ing village idiot?” To which came the unsurpassed reply, “Not my village mate”. Back into my box I jumped.
The serious adjoiner to this in the current housing market concerns mortgage valuations; where on two recent occasions buyers who have been purchasing a property marketed by us have made their own arrangements. No problem with this, although it is invariably with some obscure lender whose headline rate makes the monthly payment 25p cheaper than their more mainstream market competitor. On both occasions, a chartered surveyor from outside the area, not just the village, came along and down valued the property by approximately £20k.
We of course launched an appeal with enough evidence to choke a decent sized donkey, but it was like appealing to Putin, that’s right, no chance at all. As a result, both buyers came back and asked us to help.
We placed the mortgages with well known lenders whose valuers, crucially, work in and know the NP postcode. The result was that both properties valued up and the sales have completed. The lesson reinforced here was that any hopeful purchaser should ask their mortgage advisor for clarification as to who will be doing the mortgage valuation and their knowledge of the said area.
The additional question of how much does the particular lender pay the mortgage advisor as an introduction fee should also be posed and the response may prove to be very revealing.
