About 10 years ago, there was a TV documentary about surveyors. Cameras were hidden in test houses and unsuspecting surveyors were invited in to provide reports on the state of the building.
I have no doubt that some surveyors spent a lot of time in the property but a few didn’t. Naturally enough the TV Company had a great deal of sport with the one who cut corners and never mentioned the decent surveyors.
Faced with loss of public confidence, SAVA (Surveyors and Valuers Accreditation) did their best to establish best practice and this eventually led on the creation of Home Inspectors. (This was of course abandoned once the Con-Libs replaced Labour at the last election.)
Although it looked as if the Home Inspector was likely to vanish completely, SAVA came up with the Home Condition Survey which was a great improvement on the original Homebuyer Report (RICS).
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors ( RICS) reacted to this challenge by bringing out a new version of the Homebuyer Report and the their version of the Home Condition Report, one that largely followed the design of the SAVA Home Condition Survey.
So let’s compare the two:-
| New Sava Home Condition Survey | New RICS Homebuyer report / Home Condition Report |
| The SAVA report can be turned into a compact PdF which is easily emailed as an attachment | The RICS Reports are very difficult to email. |
| Sava have specifically have included fixed text to explain the issue of ‘services that kill’ | – |
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Can contain up to 30 photos into the report including into Section G (garages, conservatories & permanent outbuildings) and a group photo for other sections in grounds The photographs are in the body of the report. |
Can contain up to 12 photos into the report
Photos at back of report and cannot be referred to easily.
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| Boiler Information can be easily added to the report in a user friendly table which the client should be able to understand. | No specific facility |
Although I have no doubt that the RICS will come back with a new improved Homebuyer / Home Condition Report, at the moment the SAVA report still provides the best value of money in my book