Enforcement of home reports

Feb 10 2009

  Anyone selling a house must have a Home Report or face being served with a statutory fixed penalty of £500. The Penalty Charge Notice will be issued by the council's Consumer and Trading Standards Service, which is responsible for enforcing the new legislation which came into effect on 1 December 2008.

To avoid incurring this fine the seller of a house or their agent, before marketing the property, should possess a number of prescribed documents which together form the Home Report which must be made available to prospective buyers within nine days of a request.

The report provides prospective buyers with detailed information on the condition and value of the property before they waste time and money on multiple valuation reports on properties where their offers are unsuccessful.

It is envisaged the new process will also curb the practice of properties being marketed with artificially low 'offers over' prices which were designed to artificially stimulate interest in a property with the resultant effect of multiple surveys being commissioned.

Sellers, or their agents, in South Lanarkshire who either do not possess the relevant documents when a house is put on the market or fail to ensure that the documents are authentic will be in breach of the legislation and may be served with the Penalty Charge Notice.

If prospective customers have a complaint against agents of sellers, or indeed sellers themselves, where action is taken against an Estate Agent, Trading Standards officers are required to notify the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for consideration as to whether that person should be prohibited from carrying out any estate agency work.

A person who has received a Fixed Penalty Charge Notice has 28 days, beginning the day after service of the notice, to request, in writing, a review hearing in respect of the breach of the legislation.

This written request must be made to the council's Executive Director of Community Resources who will establish a review panel comprising three senior council officers who are independent of the enforcement process.

A guidance note on Home Reports has been produced by the Trading Standards service and is available on request by calling 01698 476291.

Additionally, new requirements introduced by the Consumer, Estate Agents and Redress Act 2007 which came into effect on 1 October 2008, placed a duty on anyone engaged in estate agency work, in relation to residential properties in the UK, to join a redress scheme where actual or potential buyers or sellers of residential property can lodge complaints - the scheme having the power to make a range of awards including requiring a member to pay compensation.

Two such schemes have currently been approved by the Office of Fair Trading, operated by the Ombudsman, for Estate Agents Co Ltd and the Surveyors' Ombudsman Service. Estate Agents failing to join an approved redress scheme will be subject to Penalty Charge Notices issued by Trading Standards officers which can be repeated for continued failures to join.

Other requirements of the Estate Agents' Legislation provide Trading Standards with wider powers to inspect an Estate Agent's files on a transaction and give the OFT more scope to consider an Estate Agents' fitness to practice.