The Home Condition Report (HCR)

From 1 August 2007, owners of properties with four or more bedrooms in England and Wales will need to commission a Home Information Pack when putting their home up for sale. A Home Condition Report will be an authorised part of the Pack.

An authorised document means that sellers can use them to top up their Packs voluntarily to include additional material where they judge that to be of interest to prospective buyers. Although the Government has indicated it will make Home Condition Reports voluntary as from 1 August 2007, it strongly believes that these are likely to prove valuable to both sellers and buyers, and is working with the industry to ensure that there is active take up.

The Home Condition Report is based on a ''level 2'' inspection which gives a similar volume of detail to that provided in the RICS Homebuyer Survey and Valuation, known as the HSV, excepting there is no valuation. This is somewhere between a mortgage valuation type report known to the industry as a ''level 1'' inspection, and the more detailed Building Survey or "Full Structural Survey" known as a ''level 3''.

The report will be in a standard format with built-in flexibility to accommodate all sizes and types of properties from the small studio flat to the ''listed'' country home. It is designed to be easily understood by the lay reader - that means it will need to be clear, consistent and accurate.

The report is made up of a number of sections. Section A contains the Terms of Engagement, which will match those that will have been sent to the Client with the mandatory ''Confirmation of Instructions'' letter. This section also describes the condition ratings that are used in the main body of the report and which are designed to help readers find their way to any urgent and serious defects within the property, thus avoiding the need to trawl through the document searching for the most important information.

An appendix to the Terms of Engagement describes the extent of the inspection, telling the reader what the home inspector is going to inspect and describing those parts of the property that are outside of the inspection requirements.

Section B looks similar to some lenders'' mortgage valuation forms and provides general information about the property, its age, size, accommodation, re-instatement cost for insurance purposes, general construction, including whether it is a system built property. It also provides an overall opinion. Further, it lists all the condition ratings from the main body of the report.

Section C identifies matters that may require further consideration by the conveyancer, any environmental issues apparent from the inspection that need further investigation and health and safety matters that potential buyers should be aware of.

The home inspector is the ''eyes and ears'' of the conveyancer and should highlight any matters observed during the inspection that need further legal investigation. These might include the adoption of highways, rights of way, easements, provision of planning consents, ''listed'' building and/or conservation area consents and building regulation approvals.

The home inspector may be aware of environmental issues relating to the property, such as flood risk, and this section enables him to ensure that the conveyancer asks the appropriate questions on this.

The report next goes into detail on the condition of the exterior (Section D) and the interior (Section E) of the property and the services that are connected to it (Section F).

Each element of these parts of the property is dealt with individually. For the exterior this includes chimney stacks, roof coverings, rainwater pipes and gutters, main walls, sub floor ventilation, windows, exterior doors, all other woodwork, claddings and external decoration.

The interior covers roof space, ceilings, internal walls and partitions, floors, fireplaces and chimneys, built in fitments, internal woodwork, bathroom fittings, dampness, internal decorations and cellars.

The services deal with electricity, gas, water, heating, and drainage.

When completing these parts of the report it is necessary to describe the construction in simple terms to help the reader identify what is being discussed, along with justification for the rating given and comments on the condition, identifying in particular the serious and urgent defects seen. Each element, with the exception of internal decoration, will be given a rating.

Section G of the report deals with outbuildings, grounds, boundary walls and fences. The home inspector will look at all of these, with the exception of leisure facilities such as swimming pools, tennis courts and non-permanent outbuildings such as timber garden sheds. He or she will comment on their general condition but is not required to ascribe a rating to them.