No local knowledge

I'm wring this review as I'm just in the process of sorting out old paperwork and saw the estimate given by Landmark Chartered Surveyors. We used Landmark Chartered Surveyors a few years ago and the surveyor that gave the valuation undervalued quite excessively. At first we were unsure which figure was correct as it was typed in numbers and words but there was a £20,000 difference between them so the report had to be resent. We enquired why the valuation was low and were told by our surveyor, Ben Upright, that as there was nothing in close proximity of the same size he had to value based on other properties in other "areas", even a property in an area roughly 2 miles away, considerably cheaper ( any local could've told Ben that ), less desirable ( I grew up there so I should know ) and over 100ft smaller had recently sold for Ben's valuation figure for our property? There was no reasoning with Ben who seemed to go against common sense and convention and would not concede he could not make a fair valuation as he didn't know the local area well enough. A couple of months later and in the same economy we got a local surveyor in, one that knew the area, for a second opinion. The valuation was much more in line with the local market estimates and we sold shortly after for the second value. To make matters worse a few months later my work email address was accidently copied into a joke email from Ben titled "How Bikinis Are Made" containing a large image of a naked woman once opened. Luckily no one saw my screen. Personally I found the company weren't diligent enough and I don't know why Ben even bothered to leave his office and attend our property as this had no bearing on the valuation.

Tim Wilkins - 24/10/2014 | report this review