Home reports will hurt property market, critics predict
1 Dec 08
Lawyers warn that reports will be "as despised as the poll tax"
Home reports will become "as unpopular as the poll tax", according to lawyers critical of their introduction from today.
Anyone putting their home in Scotland on the market from today onwards will need to supply a home report, containing an energy performance certificate, seller's questionnaire and a survey with valuation. Critics have said that it will depress the housing market even further, as sellers will have to pay the upfront costs, estimated at between about £350 to £800 or more, depending on the type of house.
Ian Ferguson of the Scottish Law Agents Society, which called at the recent special general meeting of the Law Society of Scotland for home reports to be postponed, in a motion backed by over 2,000 solicitors, made the poll tax comparison as he predicted that home reports would lead to the death of the Scottish property market.
Ian Smart, Vice President of the Law Society of Scotland, added that he suspected home reports would make the property market significantly worse.
However, a spokeswoman for the Scottish Government, said the critics were scare-mongering and that having more information on properties would be a good thing for consumers. She added that the Government had listened to the views of Council of Mortgage Lenders, the National Association of Estate Agents, the Law Society of Scotland and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and their view was that home reports would have a neutral effect on the property market.
Mortgage provider the Woolwich has said that home reports will not give a reliable value for properties.
Mr Ferguson added that the Scottish Government should have secured the backing of all major lenders before pressing ahead with the scheme. He said that home reports would have to be updated and it was not the case, as the Government claimed, that sellers would have to pay only once. This had not been reflected on the Scottish Government website.