Just been going through the contents of the home report which is to be introduced in December this year.

Single survey with valuation stands out as the biggest potential change to how houses are sold in Scotland.

Will this spell the end of the offers over system? Or will it just mean the figure for which you can get a mortgage on, and offers over this price will be your optional premium to secure the property.

At least I hope it makes everyone think a bit more about how much over the odds they pay when buying in Scotland.

It'll stop the outrageous way houses are advertised a way below the expected price to generate interest.
And it will stop buyers having to pay for a survey for a house they find they can't actually afford.

RICS are up in arms about it.

I registered to ask peoples thoughts on home reports; then discovered there is already a thread albeit a short one!

On the GSPC website there is a report that the GSPC chairman asked for home reports to be delayed due to the current climate (dated May 20), does anyone think this might happen?

I think if introduced not only will it stop EAs advertising at ridiculously low prices (let me count the ways I hate Corum) but it will also give potential buyers a bargaining tool. If the market takes a drops and your are the only potential buyer how will they convince you to pay over the odds?

Does anyone know at what point you will be able to get the report? Will there be a delay in asking for it and receiving it to continue getting people to see houses that in the end they cant afford?

Any info gratefully received.

If this website is anything to go by, this looks pretty official and like its all going to go ahead.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-En...ing/Home-Report

I've just e-mailed them to say that I support what they are doing and think its great; end of offers over, multiple surveys and hiding things like factoring costs. I suggest that we all e-mail them in support, so they don't water this down like they did with the useless HIPs in England.

I thought I would bump this thread as I dont think any of you are nearly excited enough about this!!

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-En...ing/Home-Report

Starts 1st December!!

Lets see if there is an influx of properties on to the market in the next 2 and a half months in order to try and avoid it.

Or am I too excited, need something to keep the faith. Mrs wants to buy!! I keep explaining that 50k saved is 50k (and the interest!) I dont have to earn in the future!!!!!

Agreed. Very exciting. Its going to effectively end offers over....which was the exact intent of the government.

The unfairness of the offers over has been debated in parliament. Some prof has been lobbying for change for ages.

The end of offers over would be a dream! Fingers crossed.

bump

I've not seen any evidence of a flood of houses coming on to avoid this. Any one else?

Is that because no one wants to sell anyway, or they realise that the cost of the home report is peanuts compared with the cost of actually selling a property at this time i.e. price cuts, or is it that most people don't know its going to happen?

Any ideas?

We put our house on the market in England on Friday Sept 7th last year knowing home packs were going to start on Monday 10th Sept.

The man came and put our for sale sign up on Monday 10th. The next morning I walked 400 yds to the newsagent and saw another 6 houses had gone up for sale on the same day as ours. This was replicated all over the general area. In Scotland it could be different because they have picked a very sensible time to introduce the packs, i.e. close to Christmas when the market will be quieter.

I'm very hopeful that because the pack includes a valuation this will lower prices. It's one thing being given a valuation after you have already agreed a price but surely when people see a valuation before they offer they will be less inclined to offer too much, especially in the current climate.

I like this penalty charge bit. The idea of being able to get some of the estate agents who have messed me about charged £500 appeals a lot to me!


Q8 - What can buyers do if a Home Report is not provided?

Buyers should receive a Home Report within nine working days of requesting it. If a buyer believes that they are being denied a copy of the Home Report unlawfully, local authority trading standards officers are responsible for enforcing these duties. If the Trading Standards Officer deems that the seller or selling agent is in breach of their duties under the Housing (Scotland) Act to possess the Home Report documents and provide them to prospective purchasers, then a penalty charge notice may be issued. The amount of penalty charge is £500 as a debt owed to the local authority.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-En.../forceupdate/on

Idealistic vote catching nonsense

If you look at the Estate Agents and Solicitors ads of late you will note they have been encouraging folk to get their houses on the market before Single Seller Survey takes effect. Only cost is initial advertising.

As for the SSS the only effect I predict will be greater financial heartache for sellers in the short to medium term. Not only are many required to release capital now but in addition they will have to pay handsomely for the privilige. Then when the house has not sold after something like six weeks guess what a repeat fee for updating the SSS. Maybe surprisinging for some but most surveyors are hoping this is what keeps them alive for the forseeable future. All major firms have had one or two rounds of redundancies and now live in the hope that the number of surveys holds up to existing levels as the average cost of the SSS is broadly double the average cost of existing standard valuation reports.

That aside two other areas of concern that appear to have been overlooked. Firstly I have heard on the grapevine that some sellers agents have already been phoning around a number of the surveyors asking for an indicative verbal figure and guess what the highest number gets appointed (not sure how that works in favour of the buyer) and secondly interesting to see that everyone is assuming that the buyers bank/building society will rely on the report - afraid not as many have already stated they will require the lender to commision their own report as they are not sure they can trust the sellers valuation!

All of the above has already been experienced down south. What disappoints is the unseemly rush by the powers that be north of the border to push the button without at least trying to resolve the teething problems.

As a potential buyer with nothing to sell I am none to bothered as I only see the SSS as creating further grief in the market.

As a buyer myself with nothing to sell I can't see how this is a problem in any way. If anything it will encourage sellers to drop their prices so as to sell quickly.



Both of these are obvious and unavoidable. It is the nature of humanity and the nature of business. Of course, the VIs are doing to try and keep the prices high, of course the banks are going to want their own evaulations.

The post-Christmas layoffs from the banking sector should help nudge everything along. It is very sticky, but I have no doubt Edinburgh will come down over time.

The SSS valuation is a bit of a farce.

No surveyor is going to bite the hand that feeds him by putting in a figure that displeases the ea or solicitor who hires him. At least, he won't do that twice to the same firm.

"The idea of being able to get some of the estate agents who have messed me about charged £500 appeals a lot to me!"

What are you hoping to do? Ask for loads of home reports until you find an EA who won't supply you with one?

By way of bumping this thread because the kickoff date for SSS is this Monday morning, I've got a few observations.

An article in The Herald says:


Here's my first question:
If the fine for declining to hire a Surveyor is £500 and if the lowest fee for one of these damned things is £585+, then am I missing something? If a stroppy potential buyer demands to see the report then a seller can simply tell them to piss off. The fine is less than the cost of the unwanted (by the seller) survey.

Next question:
In a market which is declining at something like 1.5% per month clearly any valuation has a shelf life. What pressure is on a seller to update the valuation and after what period of time? A property which is valued at £200,000 sure as hell won't be worth that in three or four months time.

Next question:
Is there any kind of feedback loop planned to act as a quality control on the valuations? Should we perhaps be keeping a log of SSS valuations and then checking them against RoS listings of actual obtained price? It might be interesting to see if a pattern emerges. If one particular firm appears to be fiddling the valuations more than most then perhaps we nebby sods might perform a useful service by naming and shaming. We're never going to keep Embra lawyers honest, that can't be done, but we can at least show the bastards up for what they are.

Perhaps forwarding the results to the local Trading Standards office might be socially useful too!

So how is that different from before.
With the SSS all buyers get a feel for the true value of the property.
I would suspect only the final purchaser will need to get a bank survey. And why not.

"If the fine for declining to hire a Surveyor is £500 and if the lowest fee for one of these damned things is £585+, then am I missing something? If a stroppy potential buyer demands to see the report then a seller can simply tell them to piss off. The fine is less than the cost of the unwanted (by the seller) survey."

Is any EA going to want to be the first to NOT have a report in place, and risk the attendant publicity..... nah. Isn't the fine for EVERY offence? So if person A gets stroppy on Monday, B gets stroppy on Tuesday, C gets stroppy on Wednesday, then the EA has accumulated £1500 worth of fines - IF trading standards get called in.

"In a market which is declining at something like 1.5% per month clearly any valuation has a shelf life. What pressure is on a seller to update the valuation and after what period of time? A property which is valued at £200,000 sure as hell won't be worth that in three or four months time."

Like another poster just said; a serious buyer will rely on the report for everything in the report but the valuation, and get their own lender's valuation anyways.... maybe

I wonder about that. Surely the selling solicitors will winnow out the surveyors who give an honest valuation and tend to favour those who talk the market up. I suspect that what they'll do is phone around three or four surveyors, asking for an informal non-binding estimated valuation and before deciding who to give the job to.

If one surveyor gives a guesstimate of £180k; another £200k; and a third gives £220k: guess which surveyor wins the job.

I can see that being challenged all the way to the Supreme Court. The first Sheriff to convict a single defender multiple times on the same charge, just because there are multiple complainants, is going to have his judgement appealed pdq.

My point about the fine being less than the fee is quite separate from the likely overinflated valuations. It's because a seller who knows or suspects that his place has got woodworm or dry rot or a planning complication is not going to want to shell out hundreds of Pounds to make his place unsellable. He'll take the tradition view of Caveat Emptor.

Anyway, as has already been pointed out, a buyer who's buying with borrowed money is going to have to pay for a new survey and valuation to the lender's satisfaction, so the "single" survey is a misnomer.

What if the Surveyor doesn't pick up woodworm or dry rot which is discovered a month or so later? Can the buyer claim back the cash for fixing something which should have been picked up?

A year ago ? The one that gives £220k.
Now ? The one that gives £180k. Perhaps the one at £200k.

Times have changed. Agents need sales - at any price. As was discussed on this site about 2 years ago - agents will move firmly from talking the market up to talking it down. They want this over and done with quicker than anyone else. Yes there will be the dumb ones who think they can hold out for higher prices. They shouldn't last long though. The EA's that actually manage to get sales in, no matter the price, will be the ones that survive.

I know a few people who have overpriced flats sitting on agents books for almost a year. If their agent was smart they would be doing everything possible to lower the price.


EXAMPLE:


(1)
You get commision at 1.5%
Flat overpriced at 150k
No sale in one year
Income for marketing/hassle/comms with vendor for that flat for one year = £ZERO

(2)
You get commision at 1.5%
Flat market price at 120k
Sale in one month
Income for marketing/hassle/comms with vendor for that flat for one month = £2250

If I owned an EA I know which option I would be FORCING on my agents.

Why else would uber bulls like the ESPC be talking about being sensible with asking prices etc. ?................

They know the game is up. FFS even the front page of their weekly paper this week has the headline:

"Home ownership - affordability is the key"

1st December 2008.
Say hello to the scottish buyers new best friend: Single seller survey.

The VI shills were on the bbc bleating this morning.
Seem to have changed their tune though. Previously the Single Seller Survey was going to cause a HPC by bringing a glut of properties onto the market,
so punters selling £250000 1 bedroom flats (which they paid £70K for) could save an extra £500.

Now that this hasn't transpired, well its still going to be equally devestating, for some undisclosed reason.
The SSS will be as "hated as the poll tax" for some undisclosed reason.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7756443.stm
EA Calls for action were met with a wave of apathy.

Surely if a £500 fine is applied then they would also have to buy a Home Report as well or take the property off the market? So the penalty is paying twice or not being allowed to try sell.

On Newsnight Scotland last night they said Edinburgh Property Centre had 400 new properties on the market last week in a "stampede" to beat Home Reports.

Regarding valuations going out of date a couple of weeks ago on Newsnight a Chartered Surveyor said that the vendor can obtain a "refresh" to a report at a reduced price.

And funnily enough I'm not sure there were any new properties on the ESPC this week at all!!

In my watch area I got the impression there was a 'rush' of 50 or so added up to the weekend, but none in the usual Monday night batch upload at 5 or 6pm.....

A 'stampede' .... of 425 properties in the WHOLE of Scotland (including a couple of garages!)

230 member firms, so 425/230 = 1.85 properties listed per member firm, on average.

A stampede, or just a wee bit more than in recent times...?

You got to be a troll...???

400 properties just registered on ESPC in a couple of days....just Edinburgh..Not the whole of Scotland...

But im sure you can read before trolling...??

It actually seems to be the reverse. Here's what my more-or-less-daily scrapings have said over the last couple of weeks.


The number for sale in Edinburgh has remained pretty much the same in Edinburgh over the last few weeks. The total's fallen drastically for some reason, but I suspect this may be to do with the way they collect their figures rather than a sudden burst in sales.

It's interesting to compare these with the figures from three months ago:


Quite a big drop in the number for sale. Either the market's picked up or people are waiting for next year's spring bounce.

Purely anecdotally, the searches I have on ESPC were usually returning 12-15 options a day at the end of spring but now they've slowed right down to 4-6. I had 6 this morning and every single one was an old house recycling as new. My searches haven't changed that much. Far fewer properties are disappearing from my saved stock and I think a fair percentage of those that do are ones that have been on the market for a long time without moving.

I would suspect that normally there would have been a splurge of houses before Home Packs came in but this is a quiet time of the year anyway and no one would put up a house for sale unless they really had to right now so that may have overridden the urge to bypass the homepacks.

Couple of days ago at my first ceilidh I chatted with a person and he was all about a friend who had just got a house for 75k less than it was on the market for 1 year ago. I've a feeling that buying bargains is going to become the new property pron conversation.

As I say, it's all anecdotal. FWIW I'm seeing some drops (about 2/3 of my saved properties have come down in price) in the rough 5% range of places I'm interested in.

"You got to be a troll...???

400 properties just registered on ESPC in a couple of days....just Edinburgh..Not the whole of Scotland...

But im sure you can read before trolling...??"



'scuse me? A troll? Why?

Go on, perform a 'Detailed' search of the NEW properties listed BY THE ESPC for THE WHOLE OF SCOTLAND.

As of a few minutes ago, it returned 425 properties.

Not just Edinburgh listings, ALL the listings taken by ESPC members in Edinburgh, The Lothians, Fife and Central Region, etc etc

They don't just sell properties in Edinburgh!

They have 228 new listings in Edinburgh, therefore (425-228) they have 197 new listings in The Lothians, Fife, Central Region etc.

...and, as I suggested earlier, 228 listings in one week, an average of around ONE listing in Edinburgh per ESPC member firm, doesn't really constitute a 'stampede', does it...?

I'll just rent it out instead....

Have a look at the rental listings. Have a look up and down Dundas St for a perfect example. Masses of places to ren that you would usually have to be quick in to get.

Holy shit !!! Just did a quick search on citylets. Have been doing my stats for ages now. Never have I seen anywhere near as many down as 'AVAILABLE NOW'.

Did a search on 2 beds in edinburgh 6-700. Almost every one was AVAILABLE NOW.


HUGE oversupply. Just think of the void periods. Remember folks - 'Ill just rent it out instead' is one of the most important aspects of this crash. It will keep it going on and on and on....

I can exclusively reveal rents in Edinburgh are about to collapse.

Thanks to your research ccc, I will negotiate hard on my next rental. I have a little one on the way in April next year which means I need a 2 bedroom and maybe a garden. Your collation of data has saved me some time. Nice one matey

No probs. I have just done my monthly search on the facts and figures thread. Big increase. So many are available now. I think searching for a 2 bedder will not be difficult in April.

Note, best of all, the plethora of DJ Alexander To Let and For Sale signs within line of sight of their two offices in that street!

When you look at stats for those sites does properties for sale include those that are under offer?

I've noticed recently that estate agents seem loathe to remove properties that have sold as if they are so proud of the fact that they have managed to sell one. Perhaps they were saving up some sold properties to take off when the Home Reports increase the number properties on their site?

As far as ESPC goes - unclear.

I got the impression at one stage that it depended on the individual agent - some left 'Under Offer' on the site, some would remove; but it's not something that's easily monitored from a PC screen..... all I can go by is the numbers on the site.

I've been using ESPC for a year and as soon as the owner accepts an offer it disappears. I've seen for example the property disappear off espc but remain on Rightmove for up to 3 months. It might be the case that there's a delay occasionally.

I *believe* this is because the exchange of contracts up here happens at an earlier stage therefore the property is removed from the market earlier. That said, I'm a recent immigrant so I wouldn't rely on anything I write here...

This is certainly the case with stuff I'm looking at. Since I don't yet know exactly when I'll be moved north I'm simply monitoring a file of 'potential' rentals and have been building this file for a couple of months. As far as I can tell everything on the file remains available and the list just seems to keep growing.

All those I viewed a month ago are definitely still available, some with reduced asking rents. (By £200 in a couple of cases - as context this relates to 3-4 bed family houses, not flats.) Only a minority of those I viewed were from professional landlords. Some of the rest were actively also for sale, some were confirmed as folk renting rather than selling.

Outside the city limits I get the feeling these issues are far more extreme, but since I'm not actively looking there that is an impression rather than directly monitored fact.

Whether all this will continue to be the case through January I can't say, for the moment I'm feeling happy.

Post-1 December, ESPC has 95 new listings in total - all areas. 43 of these are renewals of 6 months or more.

52 actual 'new' listings amongst 230 or so members....

They're all "renting until the market recovers".
Standard advice in Edinburgh.

When they realise a recovery is a long way off, they will flood the market, making a bad situation worse.

Though not for FTB's.

"I'll just rent it out instead"

Great for FTB's. As I have said for ages this will ensure that any look of recovery will be quickly destroyed by a flood to the market. Excellent. The rental market is flooded at the moment.

They are just storing up problems for the future. Such a false economy. If I had a place I had to sell I would knock 20% off and get it sold within a week. Then sit back and stop worrying. These people are going to go through months, in fact probably years of stress, simply in the hope of a return to Summer 2007 prices.

I think they are likely to lose. 95% likely IMO.

To be fair, it's not that simple. There's such a massive dry up in buyers (at least where I am in Glasgow, and I'm sort of semi-looking to buy) that sellers must be stuck between a rock and a hard place. I seem to have been the only viewer so far for a lot of places, and get a real sense of desperation from some sellers. Trouble is, if they drop it 15-20%, they're still going to be competing with pages of similar properties, and as a buyer you can feel overwhelmed. YourMove seems to have basically forced all sellers to drop 15%. But if they drop massively below the competition, which is where they'd probably need to be to sell (so a 30% drop), an overwhelmed buyer is likely to miss it (I've gone from a very large price range and turning up virtually nothing last year, to having to go to a very small range and turning up hunderds!). I'd tend to assume something priced way under the norm had something wrong with it.

So I reckon it's probably up to buyers to scout around, put in stupidly low offers and see who bites first. Trouble is I'm too bloody polite.

Not from where I am looking in Edinburgh. There will be similar houses. They will all be roughly around the same price, less than last year but still - OVERPRICED !!

There will be a couple that are silly priced as if we are still in 2007. There will be a couple that are 15-10% less than he big group.

These will sell IMO. I have seen numerous examples. My parents house for example. On for 1 year. I told them what to do. Dropped the price by 15%. Sold in 5 days.

The secret is dropping the 15-20% BEFORE ANYONE ELSE DOES.

As for your second point - can I ask why ? Go and have a look if you think there must be something wrong with it. Perhaps there is not. No harm. No time to be shy.

Nothing stupid about it.

Property prices went up by 300% stupidly. Nothing stupid about offering 40% under a stupid price.

Just been to the supermecardo, on the commuity board is a 2 bed flat up for £590, been there at least a month. Now has a handwritten "£500 pcm for quick entry".

I imagine there will be a lot of that soon.

Drove through Ravelston/Murrayfield today. You know the nice back bit with all the big old mansions. Saw about 3 of them up for rent !! I can only imagine the owners are not happy with what they have been told they will get. Decided to 'rent it out instead'. You rarely see even one of these up for rent.

I imagine for most this is fairly greedy action. The vast majority of these homes must have a bog wad of equity in them ?

Unless there has been a huge amount of Mewing going on ....................

I emailed the Home Report team to ask if I bought a house based on the valuation that subsequently turned out to be over priced, would I have any comeback from the surveyor who valued it at that price?

This is their reply:

New legislation (SI 2008/1889) gives the buyer a statutory right to damages if the Single Survey report is prepared in a way which is negligent or biased. The surveyor therefore has a formal legal liability to both the seller who instructed it and the buyer, and will write the survey report with both parties in mind. They can also rely on the survey because it must be prepared by a chartered surveyor who will be subject to the rules of conduct and professional standards set out by the RICS. Where a problem does occur with a survey report, as can happen from time to time, the surveyor is bound by complaint and redress systems including the independent Surveyor Ombudsman Scheme. Surveyors clearly must be objective in the way they report, and RICS and individual firms are ensuring this through training.

Ah yes. The old self-regulation/self-policing ploy.

That worked so well for the City, didn't it?