I have no interest in what someone else claims the state of a house is. I've bought two houses in my life, and on both occasions I surveyed the parts I am competent to do such as plumbing/electrics, to the extent that I cared, and got a structural surveyor to do the structural checks which I didn't consider myself competent to do. An HCR would have been completely useless to me, and would not have changed what I did during the purchase. As such, it would have been a complete waste of money by the vendors, and delayed them getting the house on the market in the first place.
Well, I've never paid a lender for a valuation. I have got my surveyor to write out a valuation for the lender, which cost nothing in one case, and about £50 in the other case. OTOH, I've never borrowed money from Northern Rock (although I did lend them some very many years ago until their interest rate got stupidly low).
These items are still in the HIP as part of the SAP survey.
You are making a mistake in thinking that house buyers even remotely care about energy efficiency. You won't knock anything off a house price for an old boiler, or be able to charge extra for energy efficient boiler. If you go even further with things like solar panels or photo voltaics or highly advanced heating controls, you will find these can start knocking value off as punters become scared of the extra complexity. By all means add such things for your own benefit (I do), but recognose that they never increase, and can decrease house value.
the sort of report you are suggesting is going to cost over a grand. Why should the owner of a 2 year old house be forced to shell out a grand just because the boiler in a 60 year old house might be knackered.
This sort of thing should be negotiable betwen the parties.
So the buyer gets the boiler checked at their expense after they have made the offer, if it's knakered then a reduced offer is made, easy peezy.
Nope. The buyer should be made aware of all defects and the state of the place in all aspects. No,. the buyer should not commission a survey at all. It should be there all up front by the vendor.
NO. Effing well NO !!!!!!!!!!! The vendor has all this checked and sells the property with full report open all potential purchasers. It is called transparency. What you advocate is keeping the status quo which favours sharks - those who play on the naive especially in a times when its a sellers market.
If you have nothing to hide you would not object to such an inspection and report.
No, he's saying that Prescott's Pack is worthless, like the fat arse who pushed it through parliament and the discredited fuckwits who dreamed it up in the first place.
The building societies have already said they will not accept the survey in the pack and buyers will still have to pay for a valuation, and if they have more than a single brain cell for a full structural survey.
In an ideal world. I've also seen reports of someone from the BC office turning up, having a quick look and signing the job off without any sort of formal tests. The BCO doesn't need to possess any qualifications to sign off a Part P notification, though most do subcontract a PIR as supporting evidence.
Get real. Years ago, I went to an MOT station, where your MOT was issued in 20 minutes, the engine was cold and the car suspiciously parked exactly as I left it. Why should it not be the case that a vendor finds a similarly bent HIP inspector. I as the buyer have had no opportunity to assess the inspector so my natural inclination is to regard a HIP as untrustworthy.
If the government was going to bother at all, then I agree, it should. Caveat still applies though. And it wasn't going to bother - in reality it was going to be an assessment carried out by a failed hairdresser or suchlike. I have more competence to assess a building than the shower of HI trainees that I was listening to on the radio last year.
If the MOT test items were:
a) Are the documents in order;
b) Report on the paintwork.
c) The MPG rating based on looking up the engine and manufacturer in a set of tables.
Then maybe.
They wouldn't. Remember this was a half-arsed implementation anyway.
Who gives a rats arse? Any buyer with one good eyeball can see these.
Didn't look very hard then. I've saw a house exactly like this - new fittings, new CU, total (quick and dirty) makeover. Took me 2 minutes to spot a cable that was patently not new and raise the question about the entire state of the wiring.
Why? I've been quite prepared to take on a house with 40 year old knackered wiring and replace it post-haste if I bought.
You'll be wanting guarantees from blokes at car boot sales next. Get a grip - selling a house is a private matter between two parties. It needs less government interference, not more. If someone is too stupid to take due care and pay attention when buying a house, which includes not bothering to commission a proper survey themselves and relying on the lender's, why is that my problem?
Last house I looked at I wouldn't have bothered with a survey. I would however have paid for a detailed inspection of the drains because I had cause for concern. I'd rather spend my money on specialist reports about things I've flagged up than pay someone to tell me less than I already know.
Odd isn't it how so many staunch New Labour supporters are so blatently anti-english.
Perhaps Dr Drivel's views would be taken more seriously if he was not so racist.
Surely the main problem with the HCR is the lack of accountability. If the buyer relies on a report which has errors and omissions, or is just plain wrong who does he sue? Not the vendor nor presumably the Inspector.
At least if he gets his own survey he has a remedy against his surveyor
Because such a person is unlikely to stay in business for long. People are always suing surveyors which is why their indemnity insurance is so high. I have never heard of a car buyer suing a garage for issuing a dodgy MoT certificate, though I know that garages do lose their testing status if complaints are made and upheld.
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