There is disagreement over the usefulness of Home Reports which have been introduced into the Scottish property market.
Homeowners in Scotland wishing to sell are now required to provide interested parties with a Home Report - but the practice has attracted both praise and criticism.
As of December 1st, the Scottish Government-backed Home Reports have been compulsory. They include a survey (which includes a valuation), energy report and questionnaire.
The reports were brought in to deal with the fact that in Scotland buyers would purchase a valuation of the property before seeking a mortgage and making their bid. This is because differences in Scots law, compared with England and Wales, mean that houses are listed with an 'offers over' price instead of an 'asking price', meaning buyers needed to know how much the property was worth.
When the property market is strong however, potential buyers could end up paying for a number of valuations without managing to buy any of the properties. "In some cases people were having to pay for three or four or five surveys over different properties before they were successful. That was costing a lot of money," Sarah O'Neil from watchdog Consumer Focus Scotland, which helped design the reports, told BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme.
However, Ian Ferguson from the Scottish Law Agents Society disagreed, telling the programme: "In the middle of a recession, this makes no sense at all. It's breathtakingly bad judgement." He believes that the reports should have been delayed for two years or more.
