£500 fine threat over home surveys

Published on Saturday 8 March 2008 18:39

HOMEOWNERS face swingeing fines of up to £500 if they fail to provide the Government's controversial 'seller surveys' for potential buyers in Scotland.

Despite widespread unpopularity, Home Reports, which include a survey, an energy report and a property questionnaire, are being introduced across the country in December, one of the biggest ever shake-ups in the house-selling process.

Sellers will have to pay out hundreds of pounds for the reports to be compiled, with no guarantee that they will later be reimbursed. Failure to comply is to be made an offence, punishable with fines of up to 500.

Trading standards officers have been given powers to enforce the new fines, which are more than twice the levels of those being imposed on similar offenders in England.

Opponents of the new system said the differing fines were unfair and would add to the general concern about the implementation of the scheme.

David Alves, chairman of Real, an umbrella organisation for estate agents in the Lothians, said homeowners should not be turned into offenders over a scheme of dubious value.

"The Government has gone down the compulsory route because it realised that a voluntary system of Home Reports would not work," he said.

"The fines have obviously been set at a level that will put people off from not complying, but it seems unfair that they are higher than in England. They obviously think people in Scotland are richer than in England."

David McLetchie, the MSP and former Conservative leader, who voted against the introduction of Home Reports, said the fines were a consequence of forcing the scheme on homeowners.

"Unfortunately, when you make something like this compulsory then you make it an offence and fines flow from that," he added.

A voluntary pilot scheme launched in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Inverness in July 2004, had to be scrapped after seven months, when only 74 sellers commissioned surveys compared with a planned 1,200. At the time, critics said this demonstrated the public lack of support.

But the Scottish Parliament finally voted through Home Reports last month after almost five years of development.

The packs will include a single survey, commissioned by the seller rather than the buyer, a report on a home's energy efficiency and a guide to remedying faults, and a questionnaire on basic details of a property.

Originally, Home Reports were conceived partly to help end the problem of multiple surveys, in which buyers were paying out hundreds of pounds for surveys on homes they did not go on to purchase. But since the subsequent adoption of the offers-subject-to-survey system in the Scottish housing market, that problem has largely disappeared.

But many estate agents and solicitors believe buyers will not trust surveys commissioned by the seller and will want to commission their own. "The majority of solicitors, estate agents and surveyors in Scotland believe that Home Reports will be a terrific waste of money," said Alves.

On report

A property questionnaire will be the only part of the Home Report package that homeowners will have to fill out themselves. It is split into 16 sections and will take a considerable time to finish.

Length of ownership, council tax band and parking arrangements are straightforward enough. Alterations, additions and extensions will be more of a problem, as you have to provide legal documents and guarantees, while "issues that may have affected your property" will involve memory recall and a temptation to fib.

As for planning applications on nearby land – if you are tempted to forget that new nuclear power station, the solicitors point out that the questionnaires are likely to become part of your transaction's legal missives. See you in court.