Property valuers and estate agents returning to work as housing market reopens

by Aaron Strutt

May 13 2020

Estate agents and property valuers have started to return to work following guidance from the government and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. 

While many of the banks and building societies have been providing mortgages during the lockdown, significant numbers of mortgage applications have been put on hold or agreed in principle subject to a valuer confirming how much the property is worth.  

Many of the biggest lenders are set to announce their plans to confirm how their valuers can work safely over the coming days and start to perform physical inspections on properties again. 

SDL Surveying is one of the firms resuming physical inspections as a result of the government lifting restrictions in England and returning to work. 

Simon Jackson, managing director of SDL Surveying, said: “Our surveyors will be visiting properties in order to carry these out in a controlled and safe fashion but we are anticipating a large volume of backlog cases to be completed over the next seven to 10 days. This is why we have moved all our surveyors and booking team out of furlough in order to make sure we get through this work as quickly as possible. 

“These are of course early days but this is a major step forward on the road back to normality and it is testament to the planning and preparedness of the SDL Surveying team that we can begin inspections today and produce the mortgage valuations which consumers, mortgage brokers and lenders are waiting for.” 

The shutdown has caused a huge backlog in the property market and according to Zoopla 373,000 transactions totaling £82bn have been on hold across the UK.    

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