Is this just another example of too much government intervention? It sounds good for buyer's but they will still have to pay for another survey if they want a mortgage. This could discourage seller's putting property on the market thus helping to fuel price increases.

What is the point of a prospective buyer walking round a property with a list of faults to hand when the survey that they will pay for if they want to buy the property will tell them anyway? If it is an old house it will have wear and tear, settlement and other things that are usually acceptable if they are reflected in the purchace price.

Is it at all possible that because the £650.00 pack's are VAT'able thus putting £113.75 into government coffers every time a house comes up for sale that they are for the pack's? You can double this as the seller will most likely become a buyer and the surveys for mortgage purposes will also be subject to VAT.

What with all this and IHT implications on the death of ordinary folk living in semi's I am not sure who ownes my home, me or the government.

Well... I think it's a great idea. It's really frustrating to have to go through surveys, etc as a buyer when the seller can pull out any time and leave you £££ out of pocket. This way, if they think better of selling the house the buyer doesn't lose anything. It'll make people think about selling rather than just jumping into it. Also, isn't it a better way of buying/selling when both parties know what's potentially good/bad about the property? In this way, the buyer can't go back asking for a reduction in price after the survey.

Well... I think it's a great idea. It's really frustrating to have to go through surveys, etc as a buyer when the seller can pull out any time and leave you £££ out of pocket. This way, if they think better of selling the house the buyer doesn't lose anything. It'll make people think about selling rather than just jumping into it. Also, isn't it a better way of buying/selling when both parties know what's potentially good/bad about the property? In this way, the buyer can't go back asking for a reduction in price after the survey.

The buyer can still ask for a reduction on the basis of the findings of their own survey and they can pull out of the purchase price at no loss to them, other than the survey fee, at any time prior to exchange of contracts.

No it isn't a better way as not one lender has yet offered to accept the pack survey as a true reflection of the condition of the property.

Yeah, great for buyers. But remember one day you will be a seller and I doubt you will feel the same then!!

Just to say that wish we''d had a sellers pack when we recently bought a house might have saved us over £1000 so far

well I don't own my home but I do agree it should be the sellers resposibility to provide these things.

i think its a great idea,

even if you are selling ur property and then buying another one you will still have to do one in the end,its only benefits first time buyer i think.

one good thing they have come up with, if you have got nothing to hid then there should be a problem telling the propective buyer whats wrong, honesty is the best policy

It's a good thing for sellers too, imo. You will no longer have the situation where a buyer makes an offer which is accepted and then, as completion approaches, the buyer will offer a reduced price following their survey. With a seller's pack all the faults will be revealed which will be reflectd in any buyers' offers.

Plus, a mortgage survey doesn't go into anywhere near the depth required to identify any faults such as wiring or damp as all they're are interested in is whether they can re-sell the house for the amount you are borrowing should you default on payments.

I can see the benefits for both vendor and purchaser and I think the government are on the right track but I think there are ways it could be improved.

The Home Condition Report should be to the same standard as a full survey.
If I was buying an old house I would STILL want a full survey on top of the HCR to check for potential structural/damp etc problems and I'm unsure as to whether the HCR would cover this, hence potential added expense already.

The HCR needs to be recognised by mortgage lenders as a suitable basis for lending especially if it is to be more in depth than the standard existing mortgage survey.



Just 2 ideas after a quick squizz at the website.

Funnily enough, I posted a comment on HIP's on an earlier thread. Here's my thoughts...

"There will be more cost effective ways of doing this (than paying for a HIP outright). A couple of estate agents in my area (Ramsgate - Kent) are offering a route to the production of Home Information Packs (HIP's) that will cost next to no money. Its done inconjunction with an online organisation that will do all of the work, including the survey, free of charge. How? The HIP data is available online to registered users who are looking to buy property. If you wish to view HIP details of a property you have an interest in, you are required to pay (£10 i think) to download the pack contents. This, and some sort of registration fee, pay for the costs. The net result for the seller however is, job done in line with the new legislation at next to no cost!"

I think HIP's will be beneficial to both buyers and sellers. Give it a couple of years and we will be asking how we ever managed to do without them. There is scope for it to reduce the timeframe for a typical property transaction to around 3 weeks. Iv been in and lost out on protracted property deals. Anything that sharpens up the whole business will be most welcome in my view. :thumbsup:

good for buyer and seller... better if your a surveyor :)

Also, when you're in a hurry to sell it cuts the time it takes for the buyer to get the mortgage.

The problem with a Sellers' pack is that the details in it become invalid very quickly. At the moment a Local Authority Search is accepted by most mortgage lenders up to three months after it was carried out. But what if your property took 9 months to sell? Or 18 months? As a seller you would be landed with the spiralling cost of 'updating' your pack periodically and this could end up costing thousands. This is why no lenders have yet agreed to accepts HIPs as reliable enough to base a mortgage agreement on - because they will contain out-of-date info.
The other problems with HIPs is that they are likely to force small legal practices out of business - because the only people doing conveyancing will be large firms tied to estate agents. So as a customer you get no value for money because you cannot shop around for the best deal. (My solicitor is charging me £900 less than the next best quote I got for conveyancing!)

In the long run the whole cost of buying/selling a property will increase and this may put people off moving - thereby suppressing the market and driving house prices up even further. Is this what we really want?

The buyer will still pay for it in the end as when and if I sell my house the cost of the sellers pack will be added to the asking price. Plus he will have to pay for his own survey as well. Yep, the VAT man wins again and Joe Public loses. What a surprise!!!!