One of the most common questions we are asked over the phone is, “do your Home Reports include a mortgage valuation?”. Quite often people don’t believe us when we tell them that it is not required, even though it is outlined on the Scottish Government’s website!
Your Home Report does not need to include a Mortgage Valuation. Sellers do not need to pay for a mortgage valuation.
Here is what IS required for a Home Report in Scotland.
The seller of the property is required to provide the Home Report. The Home report consists of the Single Survey and Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) which needs to be carried out by a surveyor that is regulated by RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors). The person selling the property will complete the third document to complete the Home Report which is the Property Questionnaire.
Mortgage Valuations
There is no requirement for the Home Report to include a mortgage valuation. You can ask the surveyor carrying out the Home Report if they will provide a very generic Mortgage Valuation, however, this is usually a waste of time and effort. The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has 113 members and 86 associates and not all surveyors are on every lenders panel. So, the chance is, whoever the buyer has chosen to be their lender, will select someone on their own panel of surveyors to carry out the mortgage valuation report for the purposes of lending. This is the main reason that there is no mention of the Home Report having to contain a mortgage valuation.
The person selling the property has no idea who will a) buy their property and b) who the buyers lender is likely to be, so the likelihood is that any mortgage valuation would have to be repeated. It is also the buyer who normally pays for the cost of the mortgage valuation as part of the purchase process. The seller is NOT obliged to provide a mortgage valuation as this is predominately for the benefit of the person buying the property.
If you are selling a property and need a Home Report carried out, let us give you a competitive quote at a time to suit you. Call us on 0131 608 0175 or email us at info@homereportcompany.co.uk
