What does 'Survey Sent to Panel' mean when buying a property?
Find out what Survey Sent to Panel means when you are buying a property. 'What does Survey Sent to Panel mean?' plus over 150 other property related terms and jargon in plain English
Survey Sent to Panel
Straight after a vendor has accepted your offer one of the first checks you'll want to do is a physical inspection of the property by someone who knows what they're looking at - a surveyor.
If you are getting a mortgage your lender may well insist on this as a way of independently checking the value of the house or flat so they know their loan is secure - if you stop paying they can sell the property and cover your debt and costs.
There are three types of survey,
- Valuation Survey - an independent company (a surveyor) will visit the property and compare it to others which have sold in the area recently to assess its value.
- Homebuyers Survey - a valuation as above and some basic checks for issues such as penetrating damp.
- Structural Survey - a valuation survey and an inspection of the entire building (so only really possible when buying a house rather than a flat).
A mortgage lender is usually fine with a valuation survey because it will flag any major structural issues (such as possible subsidence) anyway. This is how they organize it:
- Survey sent to Panel - The mortgage lender sends out a request to a panel who farm out work to surveyors
- Survey Requested - The panel ask surveyors they think are right who wants the job.
- Survey Instructed - a surveyor accepts the job
- Survey Booked - the surveyor arranges with the vendor or agent a date and time to carry out the survey
If you want to know all the steps and all the lingo so you can purchase a property the smart way pick up a copy of my ebook How to Really Buy a Property.