www.iva.co.uk

So I have an estate agent coming round to value my property due to the equity release in my IVA.

I find myself having to lie about selling my property. They are doing a job like the rest of us, and feels like I am deliberately wasting their time as I know I have no intention of selling my home.

I cant't tell them that the valuation is for an IVA, and feel bad about lying.

Being in an IVA has been hard enough, this just tops the icing on the cake.

Hi, I didn't and was upfront with the valuer about the IVA and that way you will ensure a truer valuation based on a forced sale basis as opposed to a higher market value. I've heard on here that some have managed still to get a free valuation done but I was charged £100 and I simply got this sent to IP who covered the cost. Most IP's will allow for this as part of the arrangement. It was all worth it for me in the end as my figures were tight and the valuation helped me to ensure the IVA was not extended.

May be worth a try with your IP?. Do you have much equity?

I got a free valuation but did tell a white lie, I do confess.

It didn't sit right with me either but felt it had to be done.

I agree with Winter_Blues. An estate agent will slightly overvalue a house they think is going on the market to: 1) tempt you to place it with them and 2) build in negotiating room with buyers.

To be honest it didn't matter for us as we had a lot of equity so wouldn't have made any difference if they have overvalued it.

Honestly is sometimes the best policy. My IVA almost didn't get started due to the valuation I recieved, so I went back to the estate agent and told the truth and they knocked £20k off the valuation. My IVA was approved soon after.

I am also aware that if charged for valuation then your IP can have this addressed through the payments etc so you are not out of pocket

I found it hard when I was setting up my IVA. I told the agent it was for relocation due to work.....he obviously knew I was lying as he never gave me a written valuation! I went with a drive by one in the end. I know I have equity so it's not so important for me. I am not looking forward to the remortgage applications either

Hey Recovering, I wouldn't worry to much about mortgage applications. You're with Creditfix same as me aren't you? I've just gone through this as per my recent posts, I just did two online applications with HSBC and Chelsea Building Society and sent in screenshots of the mortgage declined page(the Chelsea BS page actually said it was because of my credit score), CF have accepted them without any fuss!

Blimey AJB you are really making my week! [:)]

we were totally honest with the estate agent as to why we needed the a valuation. We had to pay for the valuation (£50&vat). We had to get our house independently valued as we were only £131 over the £5k equity threshold. The valuation brought us in a couple of thousand less and the IP did an average of the 2 estimates, which finally got us below the £5, therefore saving us a years payments.

I too didn't lie. Had 3 valuations and didn't have to pay for any of them.

Don't worry too much about the agents doing a job and not getting an end result - I'm sure only a % of the valuations they provide result in a formal instruction so this will be part of the process.

You can always make sure to remember them in the future if/when you do some to sell your property.

I do agree with Foggy - if you don't tell the truth they make overegg the valuaiton, which is not what you want.

I would be honest about it - if they don't want to give you a 5 minute free email confirming the valuaiton then move on to another one or think about paying them...

We have already decided that we will tell the estate agent the reason for the valuation when the times comes for our Equity release valuations. As others have said, you can get the fee paid by your IVA although, if it's not too much, we will probably try and pay it ourselves.

Well had a valuation today and pretty shocked that the valuation was £40,000 more than we thought!

Great if we were actually selling, but not great as puts us way into having lots of equity in our house. No way our house is worth what the estate agent valued it at.

We are really struggling with the IVA payments as my husband is self employed and his business is not making any money. Not sure I can cope with another 12 months [:(]