Getting a House Valuation

You will need a valuation of any houses you own for your form E.

Even if you are not going to court, and are trying to resolve things yourselves, getting a valuation is an important part of financial disclosure.

What valuation do I need?

The Notice of First Appointment issued by the court when an application is made (often labelled Form C) sets out what you have to do before the first hearing. 

One part of this is to deal with a valuation of the family home.  

There are two ways of doing this:

1. You can ask three estate agents to come and give a market appraisal for the property and then average out the resulting estimates (or select the median). Estate agents may charge for formal valuations but they should not charge if you ask for a market appraisal. You should agree this with your ex before any of them come around. One way of doing this is to write to your ex with the names of five estate agents and ask them to select three of them. You want the agents to value it for what they think it will actually sell for, which is not the same as the price they’d initially ask.  

   If you can’t agree then get your own valuation, but as the standard order says, you will both need to explain to the court at the first hearing why you could not agree to get the estate agents around. For example, it may be that there are protective injunctions which prevent communication with one another.  

2. You can instruct a chartered surveyor to prepare a formal valuation of the property as a ‘single joint expert’ or SJE. This should be done as a joint instruction with your ex. There will be a charge for this. This may be the best option if you have a property that needs repair work or there are some other issues that mean it is not straightforward, such as planning potential. However, you can’t do this without the court’s permission. If you want a chartered surveyor, you will need to ask the court’s permission at the first hearing.  

The court prefers you to use estate agents which are free, rather than appoint a single joint expert. This also has the advantage of speeding up the case as you can sort their valuations out before the first hearing and therefore you might be able to proceed straight to the FDR. 

Putting the valuation on your form E

In the property section of your form E you need to put the value of the property, and then deduct 3% from this to allow for the costs of selling the property. We do this even if the property is not going to sold or one party wants to keep it. 

You should also deduct the mortgage balance including any early repayment and administrative fees. You can find this amount out by asking for a mortgage redemption statement but most mortgage companies include this information in every statement. 

If you have other debts secured on the house you need to deduct those too. 

Now deduct any tax you have to pay. You don’t normally have to pay tax if you’re selling a home you live in.  

The figure you end up with is called the ‘net equity’.  

If you own the house jointly with your ex, your interest is half the net equity.