Committee
Communities Committee, 19 Apr 2005
19 Apr 2005 · S2 · Communities Committee
Item of business
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Item 2 is continuation of our stage 1 evidence on the Housing (Scotland) Bill. The committee will hear evidence from four panels. I welcome our first panel of the afternoon. We are joined by Ian Gillies, who is the honorary secretary of the residential faculty board at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and Elizabeth Bruce, who is the assistant director of the RICS. We also have with us Alistair Kinnear, who is the managing director of Surveys Online; Kennedy Foster, who is the policy consultant at the Council of Mortgage Lenders Scotland; and Alex Solomon, who is the senior policy adviser at the Council of Mortgage Lenders Scotland. I thank you all for coming along to today's meeting.I have a question on the Executive's consultation on the bill. Have there been sufficient opportunities for you to engage with the Executive on its legislative proposals and for you to have your views and contributions taken into account?
In the same item of business
The Convener:
Lab
Item 2 is continuation of our stage 1 evidence on the Housing (Scotland) Bill. The committee will hear evidence from four panels. I welcome our first panel o...
Elizabeth Bruce (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors):
We are satisfied that we have been acknowledged as a key stakeholder. Ian Gillies and I have been involved in the Scottish Executive's single survey steering...
Kennedy Foster (Council of Mortgage Lenders Scotland):
I take the same view as the RICS. We have been consulted from day one, through the housing improvement task force, the single survey steering group, the "Mai...
The Convener:
Lab
You will be aware that one of the main objectives of the legislation is to improve the condition of private housing stock in Scotland. Will the Executive's i...
Elizabeth Bruce:
The RICS might be sceptical about that particular objective. We have a concern that the requirement to provide information will lead to people doing only cos...
The Convener:
Lab
How do you respond to the suggestion that if buyers were aware of problems with a home, they would either think twice about purchasing it or at least know th...
Ian Gillies (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors):
There is a misconception that buyers are not aware of defects in a property, or of any repairs that might be required. At present, the report of a mortgage v...
Alistair Kinnear (Surveys Online):
Surveys Online has been operating in England and Wales and in Scotland since 1999. In England and Wales, the effect of having information up front is that th...
Ian Gillies:
In my experience of more than 30 years as a surveyor in Scotland, if a seller has undertaken a repair before selling a property, they do the work to a minimu...
Alex Solomon (Council of Mortgage Lenders Scotland):
I want to make a point about the advice that estate agents give to their clients. Within the residential property industry throughout the United Kingdom, the...
Cathie Craigie (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) (Lab):
Lab
In your experience, does a buyer's awareness of a repair outstanding on a property affect the offer made to the seller?
Ian Gillies:
It depends on the severity of the problem. For example, if the issue is dry rot, which will cost thousands of pounds to repair, that will have a material eff...
Cathie Craigie:
Lab
Is it possible that the presence of dry rot might not be discovered or highlighted if a valuation for mortgage purposes is carried out rather than a full sur...
Ian Gillies:
It depends on the area in which dry rot is present. If it is in a sub-floor area, it is likely that it would not be picked up by a mortgage valuation inspect...
The Convener:
Lab
What effect will the proposals have on homebuyers' habits?
Ian Gillies:
Do you mean, if we proceed down the single survey route, what effect will it have?
The Convener:
Lab
Yes.
Ian Gillies:
One of the big problems is education. Buyers will not be comfortable about relying on a survey that they believe to have been commissioned by the seller. The...
Elizabeth Bruce:
There will have to be a cultural change in how people regard the buying and selling of houses. I concur with what Ian Gillies said; there will have to be an ...
Alex Solomon:
I suggest that the issue is not just about the attitude of the buying and selling public. We must accept that the Scottish Parliament is suggesting that it w...
Kennedy Foster:
We firmly believe that changing the process will drive structural change in the industries that surround house buying and selling.
Alistair Kinnear:
What sellers and buyers do to property depends on market conditions. In the past few years, if someone wanted to buy a house, particularly in parts of Edinbu...
The Convener:
Lab
Yes, but is there not a difference between, on the one hand, someone buying a house, knowing that it has dry rot and making the judgment that they have enoug...
Alistair Kinnear:
Absolutely. That is why, when we started, we set up our stall to do exactly that—to give people the information and a guarantee against defects that were not...
Christine Grahame:
SNP
I regard the single survey as having a dual purpose. It tries to increase the structural integrity of housing stock in general, but it also impinges on contr...
Ian Gillies:
Before I answer that, may I ask whether your problem is with the independence of the surveyor? Are you concerned about the surveyor being caught between the ...
Christine Grahame:
SNP
I think that other members of the committee will address that. Whatever we do, regardless of whether single surveys come in, there will be contractual duties...
Kennedy Foster:
If we go back to the original housing improvement task force report, we find that the single survey was piloted to provide prospective buyers with better inf...
Alex Solomon:
The practice of submitting offers that are subject to survey creates the same situation that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is trying to address thr...
Elizabeth Bruce:
The RICS Scotland certainly does not support the practice of making offers that are subject to survey, because it means that people buy on even less informat...