Frequently Asked Questions
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What do Meet The Surveyor (MTS) do?
The professional staff of Meet The Surveyor do exactly what it says on the tin. We attend the survey on behalf of you the investor. We make sure the whole survey process goes smoothly and that all parties involved in the process including the vendor, tenant, estate agent and surveyor are reassured and made to feel comfortable.
We understand the buying process fully and as such we appreciate that it is not always possible for investors to visit the investment property before they engage the surveyor. With this in mind we not only attend the survey but we also:
• Take digital pictures of the property for your files.
• Write a report of the property for you including details of any major damage that is visible to warn you of any possible costs that you will incur. This will help you prepare your budget.
• Where possible, offer you a comparable report so that you can re-confirm your own due diligence.
What part of the UK do MTS cover?
At present we cover England, Wales and Mid to South Scotland.
Other areas will be covered in due time. We will of course update our clients as and when we feel we can provide the best service possible in other areas.
What are your charges?
We currently charge a flat fee of £295.00 for a MTS instruction.
This includes VAT at present but we reserve the right to change the price (with plenty of notice of course)
Do your charges change according to location and how?
We charge a flat fee for most of the UK but there are exceptions to this for certain extreme distance areas including Isle of Wight and Mid to North Scotland where extra charges will be applied due to the sheer distance and also the extra cost of crossing the channel. Please contact the MTS office to discuss these charges before submitting your instruction if you need an exact price.
What other services do MTS provide?
Although we do not advertise them, we also offer several other services that are coming into service very soon. But one service which is available right now is:
Meet The Vendor, where we can meet the vendor of your possible investment property. We will write a report as well as take photos and give you a Hometrack report to help you see whether you are making the right decision in purchasing that particular property. This essential process can take up valuable time that could be spent better elsewhere like finding new deals.
If you require this service please contact us in the first instance at office@meetthesurveyor.com or call us on 0203 004 8839
I can meet the surveyor myself can't I, why should I use MTS?
Of course you can and in fact I do tell clients if at all possible they should learn how the process works and try and do that themselves. One really must be in control of the deal all the way through if at all possible or at least understand the process. Saying that, you could of course also learn how to be a mortgage broker and carry out that part of the buying process yourself also but most investors choose to leave that to someone who has more knowledge and experience. In the same way most investors do not have the experience to meet a surveyor to make this delicate process go smoothly and with a high success rate.
With so much riding on each deal, investors are usually emotionally tense and it is exactly in this state that most mistakes are made.
There are so many things that can go wrong in this process that it can be a relative mine field.
Interestingly I hear from most professional property investors that although the survey part of the buying process seems to be the easiest it is in fact the most delicate and most challenging as most deals are lost at this stage, and yet nearly all investors leave this part to chance.
Many clients consider us part of their power team. We are often told that we are as important to their business as their Solicitor, mortgage broker, deal broker and the rest of their power team. After all without your power team you would have to carry out every part of the process yourself which would leave you no time to do what you are best at... find new property deals!
Many of our clients have told us that they personally only meet a few surveyors over the course of a year where as our MTS agents meet surveyors all over the country every single week! Our success is based on experience and a caring for our client’s deal that is unsurpassed.
With an 80% success rate to date for MTS and such a low cost for hiring us to take care of the surveyor stage it really doesn’t make sense to take care this yourself but if you wish to then we will explain to you exactly how to do this in our Blog, emails and newsletters. So look out for those.
What do you do if your initial research proves that the property is overpriced and that it is appropriate for the surveyor to 'down value'?
We inform the Investor before we attend the valuation and then leave the decision of whether they still want us to attend the survey regardless of our results.
Who receives the valuation report once the survey is complete?
The valuation report is sent by the surveyor directly to the person who has arranged the valuation or who has paid for it. Meet The Surveyor are only there to represent you, our client and facilitate a good appraisal of the property
What qualifications and experience do you have in this field?
Our team are all experienced full time property investors in their own right and have bought many properties BMV.
They all have many years of experience dealing with vendors, sellers, estate agents and surveyors and all this before they worked with Meet The Surveyor where in they have all met many surveyors every week.
How many cases have MTS dealt with?
Since our conception first time round in 2008 we have met with over a thousand Surveyors
How successful have you been and how do you measure your success?
Many investors who use us regularly say that before they started to use MTS their success rate used to be around 50% but now by sending us their success rate has changed to approx 80% in their favour!
We measure our success by doing exactly what we promise to do which is making sure the surveyor, vendor, tenant, estate agents and any other party are organised, and left happy. Surveyor only gets to see the positives (with our comparables and personal insight) and do not get to see or hear any of the negatives (such as hearing from the vendor or Estate Agent the selling price). Thus leaving the surveyor to carry out their job and come to the logical conclusion of the correct market value price by themselves.
Is your service confidential?
Our service is built on trust and as such we garauntee that your details and any property details that you share with us at any time now or in the future will be 100% confidential. Our aim is to become an extension of your team and as such we look forward to building a long and prosperous relationship with you to help you build your business and that can only be done with a mutual respect and trust. I am sure all our clients will testify to that fact :-)
Can MTS persuade the surveyor to value the property at a considerably different price to what the property is worth?
Believe it or not we have been asked this exact question...on a few occasions, and the answer is always a very polite no.
Please understand that we at MTS have the utmost respect for Surveyors. To become a surveyor one must have studied the subject to a high level and then work in the field daily to get a feel for their market place. We have found that the majority of surveyors are conscientious professionals with integrity and they have a tough job to do.
Our job at MTS is not to pull the wool over the surveyor’s eyes but to offer assistance in helping them arrive at the right market value price. As all professional investors are already aware, in these fluctuating times it is especially difficult to value a property. There are so many variables to take into consideration that it can sometimes be almost impossible to put a specific price on a property which is why most surveyors are overly cautious and decide to down value. Our job at MTS is to make the survey process easy and as smooth as possible for the Investor as well as the surveyor while helping them to come to the correct and logical decision of the right market value price.
I'd like to use MTS, what is the process and what do I do next?:
The process is very simple. All you need to do is:
Click on the “Book A Job” tab .
This will take you through to the next page where you can fill in your contact details, the details of the property and the contact details of the people that you are working with in this property deal. Rest assured that all the information asked for on this page is needed as we will be representing you and your company as an extension of your team. In fact the more information that you give at this stage, the better chance we have of achieving a positive result for you. (If there is anything you are not sure about at this stage then please feel free to call or email the office and speak with the office manager).
Once you complete this page in full (this will get easier with each consequent instruction) You will be asked to click on the “Pay Now button”. This will take you through to PayPal where you can complete the process by paying via PayPal or filling in your credit or debit card details.
Once the payment is made you will be sent an email confirming this transaction and explaining that we are taking care of the process for you.
You will be informed of the process all along the way and kept in the loop.
Once the MTS assignment has been completed you will be sent an email with links for you to download the reports and photos of the property.
...And while we are doing all of the above... you have time to do what you do best, look for more property deals! ... it’s as easy and simple as that.