Is there a difference in quality / suitability of Home Reports in Scotland?

googler

PPPingu wrote: »

Other than more comfort with HR, what other benefits are there to traditional estate agents over this type of online company?

A high street window.
Advertising in print
Real people for buyers to talk to.
What I call 'cross-pollenisation' - the EA shows a buyer one house, they don't like it, and from what they say, the EA concludes yours might be a good fit for them. You wouldn't have found that buyer other than by your EA showing them another house, and by the EA having a good spread of houses.
Buyers register their interest with high-street EAs, saying 'Let me know if something like

---

comes up soon' - do they do this with the online agent?
etc

Why don't you talk to your local agents and ask them what they can do for you?

googler

PPPingu wrote: »

The Home report will not include a "Mortgage Valuation Report", but i dont think that is essential (although I would probably want it as a buyer)

It has to. It's a legal requirement.

PPPingu

googler wrote: »

It has to. It's a legal requirement.

Thanks for your feedback googler, your giving me a good counterweight to the "go online" arguement! (Are you by any chance a traditional estate agent..?)

Regarding the legal requirement for sellers to provide a mortgage valuation in the home report, I'm afraid you are wrong (I've looked into this quite a lot today) - below text is lifted from RICS pdf called "Home Report - A guide for buyers and sellers in Scotland" (available on RICS website)

"The home owner is not legally required to include a generic Mortgage Valuation Report in the Home Report but it is likely they will choose to. If they decide not to, it is possible the mortgage lender will request that the potential buyer pays for one."

For obvoius reasons you need to be careful if you are going to state that something is a legal requirement when it is not.

googler

From one of the government websites -

"A Home Report must contain a Single Survey, an Energy Report, and a Property Questionnaire.

The Single Survey will contain:

an assessment by a surveyor of the condition of the home
a valuation and
an accessibility audit for people with particular needs.

The Energy Report contains ...."

googler

What exactly IS the 'go online' argument, as you call it?

PPPingu

googler, you are where I was at this morning!
I've since realised the following:
1) the home report is made of three parts - Single survey (inc valuation), EPC & owner questionnaire. these three are mandatory for all Home Reports.
2) there is a fourth optional part, called the Mortgage Valuation Report, this is the part which the buyers lender's may reject - hence the difference in "quality" of home reports. The reason some companies can offer such cheap home reports is because they miss this optional part out, when it comes to buying, the mortgage company will request a survey of their own.
there is no legal requirement to provide the MVR, this is the point I am making above.

PPPingu

googler, regarding online vs traditional, I'm still undecided basically it lines up as follows:

Traditional:
High street, office you can go into, real people to speak to, advertise in GSPC, can provide recommendations to people viewing similar properties (cross-pollination as you call it above), tangible presence in the neighbourhood, confidence of dealing with established company (probably a few more advantages that i am missing)

Online:
there is only one advantage really - cost. The cheapest "traditional" estate agent that we have spoken to is coming in at around £1,500 if we sell at the price we are looking for, online if we sell at that same price comes in at £500 - that is a difference of a grand (if it sells - a big if!)

Is the risk of not selling, and all the other advantages of traditional estate agent worth the extra grand - I'm still not sure...
I could really do with getting some objective reviews from people who have completed a sale using online only agent in scotland, but it's not that common...

googler

So, essentially, you pay less, and only pay for one part of the service?

googler

I read Mortgage Valuation Report as being The Valuation, but evidently you have a different take on it.....

PPPingu

It's not really my "take on it" - its the facts - I'm not sure if I can make it any clearer, but I'll try!

Have you got a home report to hand for reference?

If you do, the first document is called "Single Survey" the one I have has a final section called
4. VALUATION AND CONVEYANCER ISSUES - this contains a valuation.
After the "single survey", you may find 1-2 pages called "Mortgage Valuation Report" this is a separate document, and also contains a valuation - i believe most home reports by established surveyors will contain this, although as I've shown above, it is not a legal requirement.

Do you understand that the "Mortgage Valuation Report" is a separate document to the valuation contained in the "single survey"?

I'm a little surprised that you are not aware of this, as you seem really on the ball for other property selling / buying matters!