Scotland's leading provider of
Home Reports

No! A Home Report does not have a shelf life. As long as you are continuously marketing your property you do not need to keep refreshing your home report.

You only pay for your Home Report once. You may have additional costs if either of the following happens: a) You find a buyer and their Lender requests an updated report – There is no legal obligation to provide this or, that the seller has to pay for it. b) You carry out repairs highlighted in the report and the surveyor needs to revisit the property to update the report.

A Replacement or Refresh is when there has been a request for the surveyor to update the report. This is usually requested by the buyers Lender and cost varies depending on the size of the property but typically is around 1/3 of the cost of the original Home Report. This is not a new report but an update of the current report.

There is no legal requirement that states the seller needs to ‘refresh’ (known as a replacement) the report when you find a buyer. This occurs when the buyers Lender will not accept Home Reports over 12 weeks old (in some cases 8 weeks) – This is a Lender requirement only and the costs do not need to be met by the Seller.

All documents within the Home Report cannot be more than 12 weeks old at the point of your property going to market, therefore, you cannot use an Energy Report older than the required 12 weeks.

It does not matter how you choose to market your property, if you are selling a residential property in Scotland you need a Home Report. The exception to this is when you are selling the property without marketing e.g. to a family member, friend etc.

You can hold the Home Report until you make good repairs shown up in the report, however, the documents within the report cannot be more than 12 weeks old when you go to market.

No. The Home Report documents cannot be more than 12 weeks old when you go to market and should be in the name of the current home owner.

If you remove your property from the market for 28 days or more you cannot use the same Home Report, unless it was due to a sale falling through. You will require a new Home Report.

No. Most surveyors take payment at the start of the process and once a surveyor has carried out an inspection the work must be paid for. You can choose not to use the Home Report and arrange for a new report with another surveying firm but you must still pay for the original Home Report.