House Buyers Package

kingshir

What are your views on the House Buyers (or is it House Sellers) Package that sellers will have to have from 2007? Do you think it will effect the market, even if only short term? Do you think it is a good idea or is it just going to be an opportunity for Surveyors to 'print money'?

cattie

From a both a vendors & buyers perspective I've always considered this a good idea. I believe when selling a house you should be prepared to market it in good condition if you expect to get a decent price. Most people will make sure their car is completely overhauled before selling it, but will market a house that has been poorly maintained & neglected. I don't feel it is fair for potential buyers to be paying out hundreds of £'s from their hard earned savings on a survey, only to find out the house they were interested in has defects that they are not willing to take on.

I expect lot's of sellers won't like having to fork out for surveys themselves, but I'm not one of them. I believe it's a much fairer way of doing things.

zag2me

Sounds like a great Idea to me

bridiej

i was thinking of putting together some sort of sellers pack (our house just gone on the market)

we've got certificates for the electrics, chimney sweeping, boiler servicing, cavity wall and a wall tie report we had done when we bought it.

what else should i include? i had thought about the survey we had done when we bought 3 years ago but is this a good idea?

any suggestions welcome!

Rikki

From what I have heard the surveys are only going to be valid for 6 months and it could cost up to £700 to put together a sellers package.

alared

The figure I saw mentioned £1,000 and a survey is only valid for 3 months.
These proposals and a license for estate agents ,survoyers,etc. to print money.
What will happen when the esate agent has "valued" (guessed) the price of your property is the seller will tell them to add £1k to cover the cost of the "sellers pack".
The market has just gone through a massive price boom in the last 3 years and with this coming in in 2007 it could at long last spell the death knell for the silly prices being paid and put people off moving.

zzzLazyDaisy

Back in 1989, when I was a trainee solicitor, we were involved in a pilot trial for a 'Seller's Pack' that was being pushed by the Law Society. It included all the searches, surveys, etc etc, that a buyer would have done. The idea being that once an offer was accepted, the pack would be sent to the buyer's solicitor, and the whole process would be speeded up.

Of course it didn't happen like that. The housing market was totally flat after the crash of the 80's, so property took months to sell - it was not uncommon for a house to be on the market for over a year. But local searches are only valid for a certain length of time, then they have to be re-done, and this is because things change. Plans for a bypass, or a sewage works, or a huge housing development, in close proximity to the property, would show up in a local search - but only if it was up-to-date. And these are the sorts of things that a buyer might want to know about.

Generally, where there was a mortgage, the building society still insisted on having its own survey done - which the buyer pays for. And I don't blame them for that, I'm not sure I would want to rely on a survey that had been commissioned by the seller. 'Conflict of interests' springs to mind.

Also, the land registry search is only good for a few weeks - the ONLY way to make sure the information is up to date, is to do a search immediately before purchase. Otherwise, for example, a disgruntled wife might have put a charge over the property in the meantime, or the seller might have given someone permission to drive over part of his land, or whatever, and the buyer wouldn't know.

So, while it all sounds like a great idea, the reality was that BOTH the seller and the Buyer ended up paying for searches etc.

I am all in favour of speeding up the process, and making life easier, but I am not convinced this is the way forward.

Of course, if it isn't long since the seller bought the property, there is nothing to stop them putting together a pack 'for information only', from the documents already in their possession. Especially if the survey was good and/or if the work recommended in the survey has been carried out, and the seller has the receipts, as these papers might encourage a prospective buyer to make an offer in a stagnant market. But that is a different issue, and won't prevent the buyer from having to go through the normal process, once a sale is agreed.