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Can you even remember what Home Condition Reports are?

Now just imagine if RICS had been running the show, sorting out pricing, quality, auditing, standard of individuals allowed to do this sort of work and so on. No rogue training providers, no rogue accreditation schemes, no rogue/missing auditors, no excuses- well not many anyway. Oh and to finish off, a credible and determined press-savvy bunch of communicators taken seriously by the property industry.

Well astonishingly in Scotland, this is exactly what IS happening! Yep, the Scottish Single Survey is being introduced on 4 January 2009 and is mandatory for all new properties being marketed- which all sounds a little bit familiar.

Are they a real fee-earner? You bet, see the RICS Scotland press release where they explain that the survey itself will cost 500-700 which is approximately 100 above a normal level 2 survey, but they are of course carrying out the EPC for that 100 pounds!

Its remarkable stuff and frankly it makes me want to move north, if they'd have me.

In fact the single survey is only part of the Home Report, an alternative documents to the Home Information Pack and it will comprise three elements, with the first two carried out by a chartered surveyor who must by law be a member of RICS Scotland

1. A single survey showing the condition of the property and a valuation

2. An energy report showing how green the property is, providing an EPC (energy performance certificate) which will rate the property from A - very good, down to E. similar to the certificates found on white goods.

3. A property questionnaire, completed by the seller or the sellers agent detailing such things as council tax band, parking, disabled access, and whether the property has cable or satellite.

and looky here, its even got backing the Chair of the Scottish Consumer Council (SCC) who commented

The fee for a Home Report is a small price to pay for peace of mind when buyers are making the biggest purchase of their lives. At the moment most of us buy our home on the basis of very limited information, and many people end up paying out for unexpected repairs after they buy. Now they will have much more detailed information before they make an offer, and while sellers will pay for it, they will benefit as buyers. First-time buyers who are struggling to get onto the property ladder will benefit most of all, as they will pay nothing for their Home Report.

and it will come as no surprise to see the the Survey element looks rather like the Home Condition Report! Take a look, recognise those 1-3 ratings? Marvellous stuff indeed, pity the English and Welsh couldn't manage the proverbial buffet in the brewery really, God help the Olympic construction projects!

Well there you have it, another good opportunity to improve the homebuying process in England and Wales gone begging, so we can still look forward to 12 weeks exchanges, gazumping owing to survey findings which aren't declared until the moment of exchange and of course the best that CML, NAEA and the Law Society, and, to be fair, RICS, are saying is: lets go back the drawing board.

Not until you have put some credible ideas in the public domain people. I haven't seen a single conveyancer or solicitor reduce their prices owing to the availability of searches in HIPs, so lets at least have some of this debate in public, before finessing it in private.

Proper stakeholders, proper budgets, proper buy-in and commitment to change. Only then will we see action and progress. In the meantime it is no wonder the professional bodies hate Government-imposed regulation since its transparent its introduced in a haphazard and catastrophic way.

The wider point is, are industry going to grab this opportunity by the balls, or do we have to rely on future Governments to kick the housebuying process into shape? I know what I would prefer!

A final side-swipe at this shambles in England and Wales- know how hard it is to make sense of the CLG website? A search function that doesn't work- documents that move about, numbers that no-one updates and so on? Well do try the Scottish version of the Home Report website. Easy to navigate, easy downloads in one format. Not hard to do properly is it- unless you are CLG relying on half-wit consultants of course!!

Labels: Home-Condition-Reports Scottish-Single-Survey RICS-Scotland Improve-home-buying-process Home-Information-Packs