The new service provides an additional audit overview of valuations over £5 million
VAS Panel, a valuation panel management service provider, has further strengthened its quality control procedures with the launch of QC+ – a free, in-depth additional audit overview of valuations where the value is over £5 million.
The service, which is delivered by one of VAS’s own dedicated chartered surveyors, builds on the company’s existing audit procedures, which review over 100 core areas.
Stephen Todd (pictured), chief commercial officer and co-founder at VAS Valuation Group, explained that QC+ delves deeper into the key variables which can impact a valuation.
A QC+ audit report presents the findings to clients, providing an added risk management tool for lenders on larger value properties and their inherent complexities. A chartered surveyor will also be available to talk through the valuation in greater depth with the client once it has been submitted.
All reports go through VAS Panel’s internal quality control process which follow a red, amber, and green rating systems to determine if the report needs further reviewing by one of its auditors, then it moves into the additional QC+ system.
QC+ has been trialled through several leading lenders over the last six months and will now be incorporated across all clients.
VAS Panel, part of the VAS Valuation Group, is a full valuation panel management service comprising over 200 surveying firms around the UK. The group, formerly known as VAS Group, was rebranded last year, and its VAS Audit division was renamed VAS Assurance.
“As a bank, we take risk management extremely importantly, this is part of the reason why we use VAS Panel for our valuations,” David Morris, director of real estate credit risk for Shawbrook Bank, stated in a post. “We find the QC+ process very helpful as it adds an important layer of oversight to the valuation process on the larger transactions.
“Normally, the properties we value for loans over £5 million are more complex, and having VAS Panel provide us a separate audit on the valuation and access to talk to both the auditor and valuer is very useful. The whole process combined adds up to a safer lending decision in the end.”
Philip Dabbs, director of property credit risk at Castle Trust Bank, added that VAS Panel’s valuation knowledge and advice was never more important than when looking at the larger transactions.
“These are normally more complex and need a much higher degree of underwriting, and when we found out that VAS Panel had the QC+ service to support us with larger lending cases, we jumped at the chance to use it,” Dabbs said. “The separate valuation audit is a great extra layer of oversight that helps our underwriters and credit teams to get further comfort with the valuation report.”
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