Scottish go-ahead for single-seller surveys

Scottish ministers to press ahead, despite idea being dropped by Westminster

News, 20 July 2006

Scottish ministers are likely to press ahead with single-seller surveys for homes, despite concerns that it will place an unfair burden on tax payers.

The UK government at Westminster has dropped the proposal for home condition reports which were to be included in the home information packs that will be introduced in England and Wales next year.

A total of 130 MPs had signed a motion against the proposal, citing a shortage of inspectors to carry them out and widespread opposition within the industry that buyers would not trust surveys produced by sellers.

The Scottish Conservative deputy leader Murdo Fraser said yesterday it was time for Scottish ministers to also drop the idea. The Scottish Executive pushed through plans for single surveys as part of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 in December of last year.

A project piloting single surveys carried out in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Inverness did not work. Just 74 surveys out of a planned 1,200 were prepared.

The Conservatives think single-seller surveys will place an unfair burden on house sellers and that there is no evidence of support from the legal profession, estate agents or the public.

Mr Fraser called the survey a form of regressive taxation that had the potential to cause chaos in the property market.

However, a spokesperson for the Scottish Executive said single-seller surveys were different from the proposed home condition surveys in England and Wales. They had been designed, he went on, to cut wasted expenditure on multiple surveys and discourage artificially low asking prices.