Valuation lower than your bid: what do you pay yourself?

If the valuation comes in below your bid, first work out again how much of your own money you need. You pay the difference between the purchase price and your mortgage, plus the buyer costs. The mortgage amount depends on your income and on the value of the home.

Get your purchase agreement out as well. The dates in your financing condition decide how much time you still have to arrange your financing or to invoke that condition.

How much can you borrow after a lower valuation?

Your home is the security for the mortgage: the lender’s guarantee. That is why it works with the value of the home and not with what you bid. In 2026 your mortgage can be at most 100% of that value. If you buy with NHG, that value is the market value from the valuation report. The report has to be validated and can be at most six months old, counted from the valuation date. Without NHG your lender decides how it establishes the value.

They also look at what you can carry on your income: your monthly payment cannot be higher than the amount that fits it. So your maximum mortgage depends on your income and the property value. The lower of those two mortgage amounts sets how much you can borrow. If the valuation drops below the amount you may borrow on your income, your mortgage drops with it. If it stays above, nothing changes.

If the valuation stays the lower limit, a higher loan amount on your income does not get you any further. That 100% limit generally stays put, however much your income allows. Whether your lender departs from it is their own call.

Subtract your mortgage from the purchase price. You pay that difference yourself, and it comes on top of your buyer costs: the 100% covers the home only. What own money you need in total is in how much own money you need when buying a house.

If you bid again after this, the same calculation applies in advance: your ceiling is your maximum mortgage plus the own money you have left after your buyer costs. How to arrive at a bid is in how much to bid on a house.

What if you do not have that amount?

A gift. In 2026 your parents may give you €6,908 together, tax free. If you are between 18 and 40, you can also use a one-off increased exemption of €33,129 that you are free to spend, so on your house as well. You file the gift tax return for it yourself.

Borrowing from family, or another loan. An extra loan can lower your maximum mortgage, including a loan that is not registered with the BKR credit register and including your student debt. So have your mortgage adviser work out whether it actually solves your shortfall.

Shifting your renovation budget. Savings you had set aside for the kitchen are available now. If that budget sits inside your mortgage, in a building deposit, it is not: that money is earmarked for work on the home. What you may use it for is in the terms of your lender.

If you cannot make up the shortfall, check whether you can invoke your financing condition. A disappointing valuation does not in itself give you the right to dissolve. Look up the two dates that go with it in your purchase agreement.

Does anything change for your tax or your NHG?

A lower valuation does not reduce your transfer tax. That tax is based on the value of the home, and that value is at least what you pay for it. The same goes for the starter exemption: the home may not be worth more than €555,000, the limit for a transfer in 2026, and that value too is at least your purchase price. The other conditions are in the article on the starter exemption.

With NHG something does change. NHG tests against the lower of your purchase price and the market value from the valuation report, and in 2026 that limit is €470,000. So a lower valuation reduces the amount that is tested. How that test works is in the article on a mortgage with NHG.

The rest of your buyer costs does not change either. Those costs depend on the rates of the providers and on your purchase price, and that price is fixed.

Checking the report

Look at which sold homes the valuer compared. There should be at least three where possible, comparable in type, construction period and location. You can ask why they chose those. The WOZ value from your municipality is yet another figure. That is covered in what is a house worth.

Whether your lender accepts a second or revised report is their own decision. How a valuation comes about is in the article on valuing a house.

A formal complaint about the valuer goes to Tucht RT. The disciplinary board does not set a different value and a case takes roughly three to four months. Put that lead time next to the end date of your financing condition. A complaint does not remove the need to arrange your financing in time.

Asking for a lower price, or walking away

You can ask the seller to lower the price, through your estate agent if you prefer. The seller does not have to accept that request. As long as you have not signed the purchase agreement, nothing is legally fixed. Once you have signed, you are bound to your purchase price, because the model purchase agreement has no condition for the valuation. After signing you still have three days to withdraw without giving a reason. How those run is in the article on the cooling-off period.

After the cooling-off period you look at the financing condition you agreed. It lets you dissolve the purchase if by the agreed day you have not received a binding mortgage offer. Buyer and seller fill in the two dates that go with it themselves:

• The day by which you have not received a binding offer.
• The day by which your notice has to reach the seller or their estate agent: an agreed number of working days after that first date. Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays do not count towards it.

Send at least one rejection from a bank with that notice, unless you and the seller agreed otherwise. Check which dates and conditions your own purchase agreement names, because buyer and seller may depart from the model.

Miss those dates or dissolve outside the agreement, and it can cost you a penalty of 10% of the purchase price. Dissolve on time and according to the agreement, and you and the seller are both released from the purchase agreement and you get back any payments already made, including a deposit you had transferred. The dates and the penalty are covered in more detail in the article on dissolving conditions.

What to do now

1. Take out your purchase agreement and put the two dates of the financing condition in your calendar.
2. Ask your mortgage adviser what mortgage amount is left after this report, so you know what you have to pay yourself.
3. If that does not work out, tell your mortgage adviser and your estate agent straight away, so you can still invoke the financing condition in time.