Countrywide launches a dubious ‘property MOT’
Earlier this month estate agency Countrywide announced that it would introduce a new property report called the HomeFact report after a study involving 15,000 buyers apparently identified gaps in their knowledge which led to failures to complete their house sales and unnecessary costs.
The estate agency is promising the report will be ‘packed with information specific to the property being offered to sale’. There are few other details at present.
Now Estate Agency today reveals that there will be input from Santander mortgages and Landmark Valuation Services in these reports, which the company calls a Home Condition Repot. Wasn’t that the name given to a part of the ill-fated Home Information Packs (HIPs) which received such a hostile welcome from the agency industry wen introduced 15 years ago? Yes, it was.
Now, no one likes change, but it strikes us here in Scrivener Tibbatts towers that all this reveals is how shaky Countrywide feels the advice its customers are getting from their specialist advisers.
“All we can say,” concludes Zah Azeem, Partner at Scrivener Tibbatts, “Is, if you’re buying something as significant as a residential property take good professional advice and listen to your advisers. Then you shouldn’t need a HIP replacement.”
If you would like to discuss this or something related to a valuation please contact Zah@scrivenertibbatts.co.uk or call us on 020 8947 7040.
