e.surv Chartered Surveyors

E.surv were appointed by my bank to value my property for a remortgage. They were quick to contact and make the appointment for two days later and they were friendly and efficient. Ahead of time they messaged me to say a surveyor would contact me in a time frame…. All good so far. The surveyor did call and without any welcome or pleasantries very abruptly asked me if anyone in the house had Covid or if there was a dog present because he could not attend if either was present. This I thought was a bit strange for 2024 but let it go. My problems started once I opened the door to let the inspector in. My house is old, not a cookie cutter and my remortgage is to upgrade it into 21st century living whilst retaining the heritage character of the property. It has meant rewiring and upgrading every room. I have used an architect, builder, the council planning department and specialist kitchen bathroom and bedroom, window suppliers, electricians and engineers to ensure that every detail is done correctly and to code. When the surveyor entered he asked how much I had paid for the property and if it were freehold. I offered him all the plans, paperwork and he abruptly told me his job was to look at the property and make his own judgement. I was a little disconcerted as he was so abrupt and he just walked off ignoring the builders and myself. He spent about 15minutes looking around and then came back to question where the fourth bedroom was, I explained how the rooms had been reconfigured but he didn’t want to look at the plans to see and wouldn’t accept it and walked off. I asked him if everything was ok and offered again to show him the plans but he refused and then left. Later that day my mortgage tracker was ticked as complete so I thought that everything was ok. It was only when the mortgage adviser called she informed me that the surveyor had written the house was , unsaleable and uninhabitable and did not meet the lender criterion that I found out. It meant the bank could not issue my mortgage offer and could not even telll me what I needed to do to pass the survey. Upset I called e.surv and they were curt and refused to speak to me as I had not instructed them and so I asked them to tell my bank what the issues were. They ignored this request until I wrote their unprofessional response in a review, but they still would not tell my bank what met e.surv’s criterion as the bank confirmed I had met their lending requirements. E.surv refused to engage with my adviser on two more occasions and it was referred up to more senior managers at Lloyds . They are todate refusing to speak to them and again uploaded the same message sticking to the same unmortgagable and unsaleable line. They will not say what will meet the criterion so I am in limbo not able to finish and furnish the house.The most ironic part is that the builder was approached by someone who saw the house and loved it and were offering to buy it thinking it was his project….

I have no complaints about Lloyds in any of this in fact their staff have been very supportive during which has turned into a stressful nightmare, but I do question why e.surv hold so much sway and why only they value Lloyds and indeed reading other reviews other banks and building society properties. This needs to be addressed as it is impacting your business reputation Lloyds and other financial lending institutions E. Surv you are a disgrace to the field of Chartered surveyors. Your arrogance, failure to communicate with your clients is unacceptable and I hope that banks and building societies think twice before giving you properties that are not estate cookie cutter and need a professional approach. No one is perfect the sensible and professional thing to do would be for you to have some system where for your customers to get structured constructive feedback and a process for appeal.

If you are thinking of using e.surv please don’t and save yourself a lot if heartbreak and stress.

On selling our home under STC the buyers lender sent out E SERVE, first impressions were not good at all, he proceeded to discuss "sex aids" that he had seen in previous customers home and then went On to say that he is not trained in any trades so to cover himself he has to put RED ALERT next to trades he has no training in but not to worry as it is common practice? He said he was not allowed to tell us that but he will, he then proceeded to tell lies On his "visual" survey report and undervalued our property by £18000 less than buyers offer and way less than true market value, fabricated "bogus urgent repairs" that does not exist losing us the sale of our home, absolute un trustworthy ameteur, BEWARE!!!

On the selling side of things - e surv were sent out on behalf of the buyers mortgage lender. Assured I would receive a 1 hour time slot on the Friday for Monday over a phone call. Didn’t receive this text but we are busy so naturally slipped my mind. Monday rolls around I receive a call from an extremely rude surveyor who is stood outside our now vacant property and is extremely disgruntled that he has to be put out for 5 minutes whilst we drive the short distance to open the property. Accused me of lying about not receiving the time slot and seemed only interested in shouting at me. Needless to say when partner was sent down his attitude swiftly changed! I suggest you as a company take a look at what surveyors you are employing and ask yourself if they are really upholding the level of customer service you are aiming to deliver! Poor experience to say the least and one I certainly won’t forget

E surv most of bank in UK and they are doing monopoly business by recruiting unprofessional surveyors. He lies on valuation report but nothing I can do.

Where to start; Well, they failed to survey on the agreed date then turned up a week later. Annoying and inconvenient when you're trying to buy a house but the fact that a 'Chartered Valuation Surveyor' thinks it appropriate to stick a damp meter into a wall to prove dampness (they should only be used on timber) should be of concern to e-surv but apparently not. For the surveyor to then recommend I get a further survey from a contractor registered with a 'trade body' the PCA is unacceptable when you consider that a) the PCA appear to enjoy the support of the big damp companies and b) the PCA issues certification to contractors after they undertake a 3-day course. So, in essence, e-surv are suggesting it only takes 3 days before a contractor (with a product to sell) knows more about the causes and treatments for dampness than their fully qualified surveyor. The survey and building industry needs to get its house in order.

So 18mths ago we had a guy waiting unexpectedly at the bottom of our drive at 8am in the morning. When asked who he was said he was from E.surv. This shouldn't have been the case without prior consent, but he demanded entry to do survey for a sale of the home. After agreeing to let him proceed, the first question asked was what had we bought our property for, bearing in mind that was 9 years previously, so things were wrong from the start. Without going into the fine details of our case, his initial report was 20k under the asking price, but before this was completed my wife had rang the company to make them aware of an incident which occurred once I had left. Having been asked was it to get compensation or something by the person from E.surv, she replied no, that it was only to prevent further incident with the surveyor for future clients. The guy said it was her word against the surveyor and hung up. Basically calling her a liar! They then proceeded to tell the surveyor about the phone call and he rang our estate agent back and dropped his valuation by a further 10k, so 30k less than asking price. Hence no sale!

Now 18mnths later, new buyer finally want to deal with only 2 certain mortgage companies and low and behold their surveyor team is E.surv and them only!

Our new estate agent, has had it pointed out to him that even after 18mths, E.surv has some sort of flagging on their system that is still blocking any kind of new independent survey to be carried out, without reducing our sale price by you've guessed it......30k.

How is this ethical,can we do anything about this? Please help someone!

The surveyor from E.surv undervalued the rental income from our property in their valuation. We have currently rented our property and receive a rental income from our tenants at the going rate in the area. We also have evidence from local estate agents about the rental values in the area. Even though we mentioned the rental income and the rental values confirmed to us by the agents, the surveyor disregarded this information in his valuation and undervalued the rental income.

This resulted in a low re-mortgage valuation and massively decreased the money we could borrow.

We did not have time to do another survey as our mortgage application for the another purchase was in progress, deposit of which we were planning to finance entirely with the proceedings from the re-mortgage. Luckily we had savings to finance the deposit deficit, without which the purchase would have fallen through.

I agree with the adverse reviews on this site and I would rate a ‘0’ if there was an option. It appears that E.surv unreasonably undervalue properties to minimise the risk of professional indemnity insurance claims. This is against the rules of conduct and Ethics of RICS and I think I must complain to RICS about E.Surv.

This company produced a report that stated my property was in a flood risk area and it is not. Subsequently the buyer got a lower mortgage and we had to accept the offer or lose the house sale. We couldn’t lose the sale and so lost substantial amounts of money. Because I was not the customer I cannot fight this and cannot believe a company can produce reports that have incorrect information in them and get away with it and not willing to address it.

before making deposit on new property, have verified the existig charges for 5 years old and new builds around the area, and booked the apartment. during mortgage with Natwest - Who uses e.surv for valuation of property is valued 48000 less than purchase price, while other banks who dont use e.surv have approved the purchase price which is lower than chosen property.

This bunch took so long to value my house that due to my circumstances I had already moved out. Trying to get an appointment was more difficult than it should have been, I was told they only worked until 1pm! Not much use when you have moved away and are in work at that time! They also undervalued my 4 year old house despite it being in immaculate condition. Similar properties had sold recently for 25-30K over my agreed sale price and I paid for my own RICS survey prior to putting it on the market. This caused me a lot of stress, almost cost me the sale and left me out of pocket. Avoid these jokers at all costs!!!