Survey & valuation before apartment purchase - experts?

That would be a very un-belgian thing to do.

You should have been looking around for long enough now to be able to judge value by yourself.

As for survey, the owner should tell you of all the defects before you buy, or these defects should be blatantly obvious. If they are hidden, you sue the person you bought from to cover the costs of repair.

If it's a good property at a good price, it will have sold b the time you manage to arrange an survey and a mortgage.

Of course, your Notaire will be able to tell you all that.

As J suggests money isn't wasted here in Belgium by getting a "surveyor" to provide you with a list of "defects" as long as your arm but much less useful.

The person that you need from day -1 in the buying process is a notaire/notaris (French/Dutch) who will explain ALL the details of the buying process and the costs to you. He/she also have access to the actual achieved prices in recent deals so can give you a better idea of a valuation than any surveyor. If you are getting a mortgage, your bank will do a valuation to check that you aren't asking to borrow more than the value of the property but it won't be a very thorough check - although their checks into whether they think that you can afford the mortgage will be much more thorough.

It is particularly important to note that the moment you put in an unconditional offer on a property and it is accepted by the seller, you (and the seller) are committed to the deal. Backing out, even if it is because you can't get a mortgage, will cost you 10% plus of the offered sum. The purchase process has two further stages - compromis de vente and acte de vente - and will take up to 4 months, but the commitment is there from day 1. That is why involving your notaire is so important - and it won't cost any more, fees are fixed according to the value of the transaction.

Finally, if you are proposing to buy an "old wreck", get a builder to look it over and give you a rough estimate of the costs involved.