A Scottish seller is told to refresh a Home Report after the house sat unsold. Why is that not an instruction you can copy when you sell in England?

What is the fuller explanation?

The Scottish pack has three parts: a single survey and valuation, a property questionnaire and an energy report. RICS says a purchaser can rely on a Home Report in that context. A refresh, where a Scottish seller is told to obtain one, is still a Scottish conversation. It is not a template for an English board. Copying it would send you looking for a document this sale does not use.

If you are selling in England, take advice on the forms that sale uses, and commission an English survey only if you, as a client, choose to. Do not ring a Scottish firm and ask them to refresh a Home Report for an English address because a forum mixed the countries up. The unsold period in Scotland explains why that seller was advised. It does not travel with you. The instruction you can copy is the one your own solicitor gives for this sale.

What should you ask your surveyor?

• Is the advice you were given about a Scottish Home Report, not an English sale?
• Which pack does an English sale use instead, as your solicitor describes it?
• Have you avoided copying a refresh instruction into England?

What are the typical next steps?

1. Do not refresh a Home Report as if you were selling in Scotland.
2. Ask your solicitor what this English sale actually requires.
3. Keep the Scottish pack separate from the English instruction.

Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.

Also asked about this

Which pages should you read next?

• The seller offers to repair a rating 3 item before exchange. What should be agreed in writing, and what has the survey not supervised?
• The seller asks for the whole survey PDF. Why is what you pass on a choice about your instruction, not a duty the survey form prints on the seller?
• A damp specialist's quotation arrives with a treatment the survey did not ask for. Why should you not send that figure to the seller as if the survey had specified it?
• Guide: Should a seller in England or Wales get a survey?
• All UK home survey questions

Sources

• mygov.scot: Buying a home: Home Report
• RICS: Home surveys consumer guide (including Scotland Home Reports, which a purchaser can rely on)