Both home buyers and sellers taking part in a government-backed trail of the Home Condition Report came out strongly in favour of the scheme, a report out today suggests.

The Home Condition Report is an important part of the Home Information Pack proposals, the so-called ‘seller’s packs’ introduced in Part 5 of the housing bill last year. The bill had its second reading in the House of Commons recently.

A summary of the research results, published today on the ODPM’s web site showed that almost all buyers were in favour of the Home Condition Report (HCR) and most sellers were too.

Even some estate agents taking part in the trial were impressed, with 70% finding the HCR useful and over half saying it was advantageous to them to have the report available for homes they were marketing.

Some estate agents have traditionally been against the government’s proposals, saying the HCR will be expensive and slow down the marketing process.

Housing Minister Keith Hill said: "Far too many home sales collapse or are seriously delayed because problems with the condition of the property only coming to light late in the transaction after terms have been agreed.”

"These problems are compounded because about 60 per cent of home sales involve chains. A single failed transaction can cause a whole chain to collapse. The average chain has four transactions so it is easy to see that the knock-on effects of condition problems affect a large number of buyers and sellers.”

“The Home Condition Report deals with these problems by providing right at the start of the process objective, impartial, reliable information about the condition of the property”

The research, a consumer trial of the Home Condition Report (HCR) carried out by the Building Research Establishment among home buyers and sellers taking part in real home sales, found that:

• 88 per cent of buyers and 78 per cent of sellers believed the HCR accurately reflected the condition of the property.
• Almost all buyers (95 per cent) found the HCR useful and 79 per cent said it was very useful; And amongst sellers, 89 per cent said it was very useful.
• 54 per cent of buyers who had bought a home previously said the HCR was more useful than surveys and reports they had received in the past.
• 98 per cent of sellers interviewed and all buyers found the language used in the HCR very easy or fairly easy to understand.
• 85 per cent of sellers and over 90 per cent of buyers considered the length of the report about right.
• 90 per cent of sellers and 84 per cent of buyers considered the amount of detail in the report to be about right.

Reactions of estate agents involved in the trial were also generally positive, with 70 per cent of agents finding the Home Condition Report useful. 55 per cent considered it was advantageous to them to have the report available for homes they were marketing. 43 per cent said it helped the sale of the home, while only 10 per cent felt it hindered the sale.

Agents who marketed homes with a report revealing serious defects felt comfortable in showing the report to prospective buyers because they considered it better to get these problems out into the open.

The Minister added that it made far more sense for sellers and buyers to know up front what condition the property was in.

"It is interesting to note that despite initial reservations by some estate agents they ended up being generally positive. The pilot studies have produced a number of helpful suggestions that will further improve the report and inform the training regime for Home Inspectors.”

ODPM also published today reports by SPARK Research on responses to public consultation on the detailed contents of Home Information Packs and options for applying packs to low value homes in areas of low demand.

The Minister said the responses to the consultation show the proposals the Government had put forward for inclusion in Home Information Packs are very much on the right lines.

“Two thirds of respondents who expressed an opinion agree with the idea of the Home Information Pack, and the majority agree with our suggested contents. We have received some very helpful comments and suggestions and we will consider these in consultation with the industry and consumers as we finalise the content of Home Information Pack.”

"We are conscious of the impact that packs could have on sales of low value properties in areas of low demand. We do not want to make things worse for sellers of low value home by imposing disproportionate costs on them. On the other hand, we want to avoid the further stigmatisation of low value areas, the creation of anomalies and deny the benefits of packs to sellers and buyers of these properties."

He said the ODPM would carefully consider all the views to the consultation before reaching a final conclusion.