Renegotiating or walking away
A forum says you can walk away from an English purchase without penalty because Scotland's Home Report page says so. Why is that the wrong page for this contract?
Because the forum has pasted Scotland's Home Report page onto an English purchase, that is the wrong page for this contract. The Home Report page is about buying in Scotland. It does not decide when a buyer in England is bound, and it does not set the penalty for this contract. The English buyer asks their solicitor when they are bound. Do not treat a Scottish selling document as the rule for an English exchange. The forum has used the wrong page.
Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.
What is the fuller explanation?
Scotland's Home Report is a pack the Scottish process uses, with a single survey and valuation, a property questionnaire and an energy report. RICS says a purchaser can rely on a Home Report in that setting. None of that moves an English contract onto Scottish wording. A sentence on the Scottish page about a buyer who does not want to proceed is about that process. Copying it under an English memorandum does not change what your solicitor says about this purchase.
Take the forum post off the negotiating email. Ask your own solicitor, on this contract, at what point you are bound and what it costs to stop. Use your English survey as information for that conversation, not as a Scottish walk-away form. Do not cite the Home Report page as authority for an English withdrawal. It is the wrong page. The right question is the one your solicitor answers about your papers.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Is this purchase in England, so the Home Report page is not the contract?
- Which document does your solicitor say actually binds you?
- Have you kept Scottish Home Report wording out of the English advice?
What are the typical next steps?
- Ask your solicitor when you are bound on this English contract.
- Do not use the Scottish Home Report page as that answer.
- Ignore the forum wording that pastes Scotland onto this purchase.
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
If the Scottish page is public, can an English buyer use the sentence?
They can read it. They cannot treat it as the rule for an English contract. Ask the solicitor when this purchase binds you.
Does relying on a Home Report, as RICS describes, apply to this English survey?
No. That reliance point is about a Scottish Home Report. It is not a walk-away rule for the English purchase in front of you.