Home report from websites?

Machighlandcow

Hi everyone, I've signed up to this as I have a question about home reports. I am planning to sell my flat and going through my solicitors. He said a home report for my property, valued at about £120,000 will be about £420. Phoned around and this is true. But when I googled 'home report' it comes up with suggestions and websites that can do it for much less. Does anyone have any experience of this or any thoughts? I'm looking for the lowest cost but don't know if I should trust these sites. Thank you for reading, Issy

csh_2

Hello, judging from the user name we are talking Scottish home report?
Ours was £360 on a house at 95k and I too thought that was steep, had a google and found out that the cheaper things are not the same as what seems to be required up here.
A lot of the cheaper ones were for England as I think the HR is different down there?
I was told by my EA that you can only legally market a house in Scotland when you have a complete home report.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/BuyingSelling/Home-Report


ETA: Make sure the solicitor uses Rightmove! Some don't and thats the first place the majority of people will look...

Machighlandcow

Ahh yes, sorry Scotland! Thank you! I've just got an e mail back from a website claiming to do a home report for £200 but they quoted me £320! So for a hundred pound extra I might go with the local company for peace of mind!

csh_2

Where are you based? We had Shepards do ours (in the Central belt) very quick 2 day turnaround.

BigAunty

Might be a false economy anyway.

I went with a local company, considerably cheaper than the estate agent's suggestion, who were RICS registered.

Then the buyer's lender rejected the Home Report because the company wasn't on their approved list and I had to pay all over again hundreds of pounds for a new surveyor to spend all of 10 mins in my flat to value it. I'm assuming each lender has their own list and so a seller simply enters a lottery about whether the HR they provide will be accepted or not when they have found a buyer.

To add insult to injury, the new survey company would not give me a copy of the report I had requested and paid for as they said it was only for the lenders eyes - that was their client, as far as they were concerned. They also told me that the process is that they do not distribute the HR to the lender until the lender actually requests it. So it just simply sits there until the lender can be bothered to ask for it. My solicitor confirmed that, as bizarre as it sounds to pay for something and not get the product, and not send the report onto the lender automatically, this is the process.

The new survey company told me the report was ready within a couple of days of the visit by their surveyor and was ready for whenever the lender asked for a copy, and that they'd call them and give them a nudge - I told them we were set a deadline to exchange missives within the next week so was relieved at this speediness.

Then because the solicitors continued to complain, I contacted another member of staff two weeks later who merrily told me that it had only just gone through their internal review and sign off process and therefore wasn't quite ready to go to the lender of the buyers for our flat, that it was only just fully produced. She knew nothing of earlier promises that it was all set to go to the lender.

By that stage the solicitors of the seller of the onward property and their onward property were furious. The chain above me was very impatient with the extra delay this bought to concluding missives and came very close to remarketing their property because of the long lost period between when the lender rejected the mortgage application on the grounds of the HR and them requesting and receiving the second one.

It seemed to take our buyer close on 10 weeks to secure a mortgage, not sure how much dilly dallying was caused by them, their lender and solicitor but the rejection of the original HR and the poor service by the second company of surveyors certainly didn't help and may have slowed things down by at least 3 or 4 weeks. This is an age by Scottish property standards to just reach the conclusion of missives stage (equivalent to the exchange of contracts in England/Wales) - I got the impression that full completion can happen in half that time span.

googler

BigAunty wrote: »

Might be a false economy anyway.

I went with a local company, considerably cheaper than the estate agent's suggestion, who were RICS registered.

Then the buyer's lender rejected the Home Report because the company wasn't on their approved list and I had to pay all over again hundreds of pounds for a new surveyor to spend all of 10 mins in my flat to value it. I'm assuming each lender has their own list and so a seller simply enters a lottery about whether the HR they provide will be accepted or not when they have found a buyer.

The morale of the tale, essentially, is to ask the chosen surveyor -"Are you on the major lenders' panels?"

If the reply is anything other than a firm "Yes", look for another.

Machighlandcow

BigAunty what a nightmare. The other halves saying take the extra hundred quid and go with the cheap site, I'm not sure. I'm in the highlands but we have shepherds here so thanks for the recommendation!
It's a big deal selling my flat so might spend the extra money even though I'm having to borrow it to actually start the ball rolling. It's ridiculous, what an amount of money to get this done!
Issy x

BigAunty

googler wrote: »

The morale of the tale, essentially, is to ask the chosen surveyor -"Are you on the major lenders' panels?"

If the reply is anything other than a firm "Yes", look for another.

I didn't have the luxury of the time machine in order to go back and ask a question I didn't know I needed to pose.

Also, I don't believe it is common knowledge to property sellers/buyers in Scotland that lenders have lists of approved surveyors, with each having a different lists.

Seemingly, others have additional criteria, such as point blank rejection of the original HR if it is more than 3 months old, if the buyer is wanting a mortage above 75% of the valuation and so forth.

Property sellers in Scotland just need to know that it's going to be pot-luck if they need to shell out for an additional report depending on the lender their buyer chooses.

Littleweedj

Charges for Home Report are dependant on estimated selling price of property . Home Reports for properties under £200K were £160 and that is from a recognised RICS registered company (Glasgow area).

googler

Pay peanuts, get monkeys, as they say.....

Home seller's fury as firm's £195 home report doesn't include necessary valuation certificate