A Scottish legal firm says home reports are here to stay, despite calls to scrap them by a senior Dundee solicitor.
Lindsay Darroch, a partner and head of property services at Blackadders Solicitors, wants the Scottish Government to scrap the report, saying he believes the costs involved put people off placing their house on the market to “test the water”.
But Professor Stewart Brymer, a colleague in the legal profession, has challenged this view, saying the home report is a useful tool for buyers.
In late 2008 the way Scots bought and sold houses changed. The Scottish Government introduced the three-part home report that offers buyers a greater amount of information including the value of the property, its energy efficiency and council tax band.
But critics say the report, which can cost around £400 depending on house size and individual surveying firms, is an unnecessary expense.
“I believe it penalises people who are in financial difficulty but who want to sell their home,” said Mr Darroch, who has been with Blackadders since 2000. “The Scottish Government brought it in to deal with the problem of multiple surveys being carried out, but this was never a problem.
“Statistics now show more surveys are getting done than before. The reason is not all lenders accept home reports. Some surveyors are not on lender panels and after three months lenders consider the report out of date.”
From a home purchaser’s point of view, he added, there is currently no home report register, allowing sellers to “disguise” faults in the house before a separate home report survey is carried out.
“There is also a large conflict of interest here,” he said. “You, as a buyer, are being asked to rely on information supplied by the seller’s agent. There is a degree of bias with this, possibly even in terms of property value.Opposition”Home reports have benefited the big solicitor agents so my opposition is simply because I don’t think the scheme is in the interests of my clients or the Scottish property market.”
Despite a split in public opinion, the Scottish Government says it has no plans to scrap home reports welcome news to Professor Brymer, a solicitor at Brymer Legal in Edinburgh, who says the report is “a good thing.”
Professor Brymer, the Law Society’s representative on the committee that came up with home reports and drafted the questionnaire sellers now must complete, admitted it needed revision.
“The concept of the home report to provide better information to the purchaser is good. I had reservations that I made clear to the government and put forward suggestions which they ignored.
“I want to see a register of home reports as they have in England and Wales so the public can access this at any time. This would better protect buyers and is something they (the Scottish Government) need to do.”
In parts of Scotland home reports had helped the property market by providing information up front, but he backed calls for the document to be reviewed.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) policy consultant in Scotland, Kennedy Foster, also said the report is an advantage to buyers but agreed it needed revision.