Independent surveyors should play a central role in England’s proposed home-buying reforms, according to Houzecheck.
The property technology surveying firm said buyers must receive reliable information about a property’s condition before committing to a purchase.
The government has confirmed plans to introduce legislation requiring sellers to prepare property sales packs before marketing a home. These would include property searches and a property condition report.
The measures are part of a wider programme intended to make transactions faster and more transparent, while reducing the number of sales that fall through.
Although the government has confirmed that a condition report will be included in the proposed pack, the scope and requirements of the assessment have yet to be established.
Houzecheck said condition assessments should be carried out by qualified, independent surveyors to ensure that buyers receive useful information supported by professional expertise.
Richard Sexton (pictured), commercial director at Houzecheck, said: “Giving buyers better information earlier in the process is absolutely the right direction of travel, but the quality of that information will be critical.
“If we’re asking buyers to make one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives based on a property’s condition, that assessment needs to come from a professional with the expertise to identify the issues that really matter.”
The company also warned that the government would need to consider capacity across the surveying sector if condition assessments became a standard part of the home-buying process.
The reforms are intended to address longstanding problems in a process that takes an average of 120 days and in which about one in three transactions fails. Moving key information to an earlier stage could reduce the risk of significant issues emerging only after an offer has been accepted.
Houzecheck said any substantial increase in demand for surveying services must be managed without creating another bottleneck in the transaction process. It argued that independent surveying firms could help to provide the necessary capacity.
Sexton said: “The last thing we should do is create a bottleneck in the homebuying process that only slows sales down. If condition assessments become a standard part of every sale, the surveying industry needs the capacity to deliver them quickly and consistently without compromising professional judgement or quality.
“That means making full use of the independent surveying sector, including firms that already have national coverage, established surveyor networks and technology-enabled processes. There is capacity in the market, but the reforms need to make sure that capacity can be deployed effectively.”
The government is expected to provide further details about property condition report requirements as its home-buying and selling reforms progress.
Houzecheck has more than 160 surveyors operating across England and Wales and completes about 21,000 surveys a year. Its model uses digital instruction, structured reporting and AI-assisted quality assurance.
