Home Reports: Year 1 Report Card
Home Reports have been with us for nearly a year. ESPC undertook a survey of its membership to gather their views on how the first year had gone.
The findings from the survey were as follows:
- 80% have experienced problems with lenders accepting the seller’s survey report.
- Over 60% of respondents have faced problems with the survey being accepted by a lender in at least 1 in every 4 sales.
- In the majority of cases any additional cost is covered by the seller.
- There are occasions when buyers still choose to have their own survey completed. The main reasons are either to have their own survey or the single survey does not provide sufficient detail.
- If an updated survey is required this is mostly done only once an offer has been accepted.
- There is a small percentage of homesellers who are electing to have multiple valuations done and choosing the one that best suits their needs.
Commenting on these results, ESPC Chief Executive Malcolm Cannon said, “The basic premise of Home Reports is a valid one, to increase access to information on the condition of a property. The problems start when that information is not allowed to flow through the house buying process as it should. For example, if a lender operates their own standards of what is an acceptable survey, this has the potential to increase costs and slow down the process. Home Reports are mandatory, they need to have total buy-in from all stakeholders to ensure consistency and to help the public know what a home report will or will not do”.
The Scottish Government has committed to an interim evaluation of the Home Report and a full policy evaluation further down the line to assess its impact. We will wait to see what impact the lessons from the first year of Home Reports have on these evaluations.
30 November 2009