subject to survey

That's just bad luck. You could try offering a bit more than the fixed price if you want to make that less likely. It boils down to how likely you think it is that others will have been watching and waiting for it to go to FP.

Then you're in dead trouble if you allow missives to conclude.

Of course there is a point in putting in a conditional offer. All offers tend to contain dozens of conditions anyway. The sellers' solicitors then respond with a qualified (i.e. also conditional) acceptance, which typically calls for some of the buying conditions to be deleted. Lately it has become more the norm to make a satisfactory survey one of the conditions, and the qualified acceptance will then simply call for that condition to be deleted. The buyer then has the turn-round time in which to get the survey done.

These dealings are often highly efficient and it is usual to put in a faxed offer and for it to be accepted in priciple within a couple of hours, and for the surveyor to go round the same day, and report verbally either the same day or next, so that the survey condition can be removed very early on.

Where a property has gone from offers over to fixed price this tends to mean it's not attracting enough interest, and a conditional offer would be likely to be snapped up. You may even try offering below the asking price.

That won't guarantee you'll get it. If someone else offers more, but conditionally, the seller will have to take a view and weigh up the odds of losing the unconditional lower offer against your survey turning out to be unsatisfactory. Generally, if the survey can be done immediately, and the condition removed within 24 hours, things should be fine.

As the buyer wants to sell his/her house, they will tend to go for the offer which is most likely to complete. Obviously this is subject to the amount offered by the buyers, but this is less likely to be an issue in a Fixed Price property.

Regarding the survey, if you put in an offer first thing you would reasonably expect the survey to be completed and to get feedback the same day. You are only going for the scheme 1 survey and as I understand it, this type of survey is the one where the surveyor goes past the property on the bus and sees if it looks ok :-) So the survey shouldn't be an issue.

As for the mortgage, you just need to get the ball moving ASAP.

Pete