Home Report vs a property report: what each covers in Scotland

What the Home Report is for

The Scottish Government introduced the Home Report in 2008 “to provide better information about the condition of properties to sellers and buyers before offers are placed.” mygov.scot describes its three parts as “a single survey and valuation, a property questionnaire and an energy report.” The single survey is based on a visual inspection by a chartered surveyor and covers the home's condition, its accessibility and the repairs it may need, with an opinion of what the home is worth. The questionnaire records the seller's answers about the property. The energy report covers energy efficiency and running costs.

Two rules matter to a buyer. A seller or selling agent must give you the Home Report within nine days of you asking for it. And the regulations require the information to relate to a date no more than 12 weeks before the home is first put on the market — so on a home that has been for sale a long time, it describes the property as it was when it was listed.

What it was never designed to cover

A Home Report is about the building. The surveyor inspects visually, which means what cannot be seen — under floors, behind fitted units, inside walls — is outside what the survey can report. The questionnaire is the seller's account, not an independent check. And none of the three parts is a screen of the risks around the property: the official flood mapping for rivers, the sea and surface water; the geological hazards under the plot; radon potential; or whether the address sits in a former coalfield.

Those are the questions a pre-offer property report is built for. It reads the official national flood maps for Scotland, national geological survey data for ground stability, radon potential and coal-mining areas, and nearby environmental registers, and it names every check it could not run rather than scoring it as a pass.

What a property report cannot tell a Scottish buyer

HouseCheckup reports cover England, Wales and Scotland, but not identically. Some official sources publish for one nation and not another, and in Scotland several are not openly available. These are the checks a Scottish report does not include:

• Sold-price history for the individual address. Registers of Scotland sell per-address data under licence and there is no open equivalent of HM Land Registry Price Paid. We show neighbourhood-level sale statistics instead, and link you to ScotLIS for a free per-address check.
• Council tax band. The Scottish Assessors' valuation list is not openly published; look yours up free at saa.gov.uk.
• Street-level crime. Police Scotland do not publish to data.police.uk, so no street-level figure exists for any Scottish address from any provider.
• Energy rating. Scottish EPCs sit on a separate register we do not yet carry.
• Bus and rail stop listings, Census neighbourhood profile, and coastal erosion projections.

The Home Report covers two of those from another angle: its energy report gives you the energy rating, and the surveyor's valuation gives a professional view of value where per-address sale history is not openly published. That is the practical case for reading both.

How the two fit into a Scottish purchase

Offers in Scotland go through a solicitor, often against a closing date, and an accepted offer moves quickly towards a binding contract. That puts a premium on knowing what you are buying before your solicitor notes interest or submits an offer. Read the Home Report as soon as you are serious about a home. If the single survey or the questionnaire raises something, ask about it through the agent. Then screen the address for flood, ground, radon and mining before you commit your solicitor's time — it costs less than the legal work an offer sets in motion, and it answers questions the Home Report does not ask.