Home Condition Reports
What is this?
Initially, the Government intended that a Home Condition Report (HCR) would need to be included within a Home Information Pack (HIP). Because of a shortage of Home Inspectors, the HCR is now only optional for inclusion in the pack.
Who is it for?
Results of reports carried out for HM Government indicate that almost 30% of purchasing transactions fail between offer acceptance and exchange of contracts and that in over 40% of these cases this is due to survey related problems. In other words, after agreeing on a price, purchasers (or their mortgage lenders) have instructed a survey on the property and discovered problems. In most cases, the purchaser has attempted to renegotiate the price but not been successful so the deal has collapsed. The Government believes that the inclusion of a Home Condition Report (HCR) in the Home Information Pack will help to avoid this type of failure because the purchaser will be provided with similar information to a survey report before the price negotiation starts. There is therefore less likelihood of renegotiation, later!
Who is it not for?
Home Condition Reports are not mandatory and are probably of little value to the purchaser if the property is new or built within the past 10 years as most of these properties will be protected by a guarantee or warranty scheme. If in doubt, however, you should check,
