Consultation on the Home Report - Analysis of Responses

1 Introduction

Background to the consultation

1.1 The Home Report was introduced into Scotland in December 2008 and came about because of concerns about unacceptably high levels of disrepair in the private housing stock. The majority of houses for sale in Scotland must have a Home Report, with the key components of that Home Report being:

• A Single Survey which contains an assessment by a surveyor of the condition of the home, a valuation and an accessibility audit for people with particular needs;
• An Energy Report which includes an assessment by a surveyor of the energy efficiency of the home and its environmental impact, and recommends ways to improve these; and
• A Property Questionnaire which is completed by the seller of the home. It contains additional information about the home, such as council tax banding and factoring costs, that will be useful to buyers.

1.2 The Scottish Government is currently undertaking a two-stage review of the Home Report with a public consultation exercise forming the first part of that review. The second stage, an independent investigation of how the Home Report has performed over its first five years of operation, will be published later this year.

The Consultation Process

1.3 This report presents an analysis of the responses submitted to the Scottish Government's consultation on the Home Report. The consultation sought the views and experiences of people who have used the Home Report and of those that are involved in the house buying and selling system including buyers, sellers and industry professionals.

1.4 The consultation document set out a total of 23 questions divided between three sections as follows:

• Section 1 considered whether the Home Report is meeting its objectives and if these objectives are still the right ones.
• Section 2 looked at how the Home Report operates in the current market, by exploring topics raised by stakeholders and the general public since the introduction of the Home Report, namely costs, commissioning, production, marketing, timescales, access, enforcement, access to mortgage finance, exceptions and redress.
• Section 3 covered the content, layout and usefulness of the Home Report documents.

1.5 The consultation period ran from 5 December 2013 with responses invited by 27^th February 2014, although this was later extended to early March. Craigforth was commissioned to undertake the independent analysis of responses received which is presented in this report.

Profile of respondents

1.6 A total of 146 responses were received by the Scottish Government. Two responses were received after the extended deadline and were not available for inclusion within the analysis presented here^[1]. A total of 144 responses were available to the analysis team, with 47 of these submitted by groups or organisations and 97 by individual members of the public. A further breakdown by type of respondent is set out in the table below.

Table 1: Responses Received by Type of Respondent

1.7 Of particular note in terms of the profile of respondents is:

• The Chartered Surveyor Respondents included a professional body for the industry. This respondent noted that they had consulted with members when preparing their response. The other responses in this category were submitted by chartered surveying firms.
• Construction Industry Respondents were a membership body for the industry, a training board and a national federation.
• The Consumer, Advice & Campaign Groups were: 2 disability organisations; an organisation which works to help people reduce energy consumption; a consumer focused non-departmental public body; and a coalition group calling for action to transform Scotland's existing housing stock.
• The Legal Profession and Estate Agent category includes 2 representative bodies for the legal profession, one legal practice, one estate agency and 4 firms which offer both legal and estate agency services.

• 7 Local Authority responses were received, with 2 received from different services within one Local Authority area. The specific services submitting responses included 2 Trading Standards and 2 Environmental Health Services.

• The Property Management, Maintenance and Conservation Respondents were: an association representing property factor firms; a professional body for building conservation practitioners and historic environment specialists; a social housing, community regeneration and care group which also provides factoring services; and 4 property maintenance and/or factoring firms, one of which is not-for-profit.
• The Other Respondents group contains a diverse range of respondents: 2 representative bodies for private sector landlords; 2 public bodies; 2 financial services representative bodies; and a water company and an energy company.

1.8 A list of the groups that submitted a Respondent Information Form (RIF) as part of their response to the consultation is included as an annex to this report.

1.9 The majority of responses were submitted by individual members of the public. A number of these responses contained information which suggested they belonged to one of four broad groups: individual members of the chartered surveying profession; individual members of the legal and/or estate agency profession; former or current property sellers; and former or current property buyers. A small number of those in these latter two categories referred to their experience of being both a seller and a buyer.

Structure of the report

1.10 The remainder of this report presents a question by question analysis of responses given at each of the 23 questions set out in the consultation document. Again mirroring the consultation document, the analysis is represented in three sections.

1.11 The results of the 'Yes/No' question included for 22 of the 23 questions are presented in tabular form. A small number of respondents adapted the response form at certain questions to give a mixed view - for example either by selecting both 'Yes' and 'No' or by adding a third option (for example, 'yes and no', mixed, both). These responses have been included within the tables under 'Mixed'. The N/A column represents 'Not Answered'.

1.12 Please note that a small number of respondents did not make their submission on the consultation questionnaire, but submitted their comments in another format. When these responses contained clear answers to one or more of the 'Yes/No' questions these have been recorded. The remaining content was analysed under the most directly relevant consultation question.

1.13 A small number of respondents also submitted extensive written reports or analysis, sometimes suggesting these materials could inform the evaluation of the Home Report (as at paragraph 1.2 above). These responses have been highlighted to the Scottish Government.