A broker, who wished to remain anonymous, questioned the need for a property valuation if the lender referred it straight to Land Registry. He said: “I submitted a buy-to-let (BTL) case with Kensington Mortgages. However it has recently changed the way it values properties, and now refers all the decisions through the Land Registry website. This site seems to value properties based on the value of properties in the same area, and doesn’t take into account the number of bedrooms, whether it has a garden or garage, and other info about further details of the property. The case I submitted came back saying it had been rejected because the valuation did not match similar properties in that area on the Land Registry site. My client was expecting to get an offer through, but instead was told he needed to get another valuation at his own expense.”
He added: “What is the point of getting a valuation of the property if Kensington is then going to dispute it by using a website to see how the property matches others in that area.”
However, Alex Hammond, PR manager at Kensington Mortgages, defended the decision to look at alternative sources of information to back up the property valuation. They said: “As a responsible lender Kensington Mortgages takes all the necessary steps to ensure it is making reliable and responsible lending decisions. As such we will always reserve the right to collect information from more than one source.”
