With the inevitability of death and seemingly just as welcome, Home Reports are almost upon us.They don’t suit everyone, but pragmatists argue that the time for complaining has long passed, and say it is time to address them and make the new regime work.

There has been much furrowing of brows, scratching of beards and looking on in confused disbelief, but against all predications -yet curiously in keeping with such phenomena as cause and effect- the simple fact is that they are almost here, and barring a last minute intervention, will be required from 1 December. Government PR is already in full swing. Anecdotally, most conveyancers are wondering how on earth it happened. Some are choosing this late stage in the game to get vocal about it, threatening to throw their conveyancing toys out of the pram. Experienced heads repeat the same logical mantra that greeted the idea when it was first touted over five years ago; we don’t need them, conveyancing practice will adapt to suit, it’ll never happen.  Two out of three isn’t bad. But like it or not, Home Reports are really happening.

And the profession really doesn’t like it, as evidenced by a vote at the Law Society in which 2,052 solicitors voted for the introduction of Home Reports to be delayed, a margin of 40-1 against the 52 who voted for the timetable to stand. As late as September this year, the Scottish Law Agents Society went on a scaremongering publicity drive to promote their pamphlet of paranoia; “The truth about Home Reports- What the Scottish Government dare not tell you,” the precise purpose of which - aside from enumerating the well known perceived faults of the scheme- was unclear. 

Ken Swinton, a Senior Law Lecturer at the University of Abertay in Dundee and a spokesman for SLAS, called for a postponement of the launch.

“Our own Society will also keep fighting in the knowledge that our members and, indeed, non-members, are fully behind us and approve of us taking the lead on this. There is anger that solicitors, the professionals whose job it is to advise clients with regard to the type of survey that should be instructed and accepted, have been ignored.” 

Ian Ferguson, a solicitor and spokesman for SLAS belatedly painted a rather apocalyptic view of a post-Home Report dystopia, and tried to rally public support to lobby the Scottish Government.  “The Government are the only people who don’t seem to know that there is already a single survey system in operation via subject to survey offers. The[ir] website also indicates that first-time buyers will benefit, as the cost of a survey falls to the seller. It fails to point out that unless they buy within four weeks of the survey being carried out, their lender is likely to insist on a fresh report.

“We urge members of the public to write directly to the First Minister or their MSP expressing their anger at this cover-up and the Scottish Consumer Council’s abject failure to advise the public about the true position of what life will be like after 1 December 2008.”

The conveyancing profession’s near-universal distaste has been evident from the very conception of the idea. Yet the launch remains imminent. Conveyancers seem almost embarrassed at the impending arrival of something they neither desired or resisted, and of which they mostly do not approve. How is it possible that all these fiery bellies could have their profession so easily usurped by an unwelcome change in the law?

Even the strongest advocates of the Home Reports adopt a “make the best of it” approach, their pragmatism outweighing their petulance.  Harper Macleod’s chairman Professor Lorne Crerar, alongside Professor Stewart Brymer of Thorntons, have spent the last several years arguing the ‘pro’ position, and Professor Crerar takes issue with the “old and tired” arguments against the scheme, which he says do not represent a properly balanced view or a “factually correct statement of the reasons for and consequences of Home Reports”.

“The Government’s direction to the Housing Improvement Task Force was that more meaningful information should be available to purchasers about the home of their choice prior to purchase.  The Single Survey will deliver to purchasers very meaningful information about the property they are considering buying, including a market valuation,” he says.

“It is a consequence of the Single Survey system that the practice of multiple valuations and indeed the setting of artificially low upset prices will disappear.  The proponents of the subject to survey offer system panacea completely miss the point, as such offers are based upon the fundamental premise that at the time of offer the purchaser has no meaningful information at all about the property he or she wishes to purchase.” 

“The consumer bodies including The Scottish Consumer Council together with the Scottish Government have the vision to see the benefits to the house buying and selling system in Scotland by the introduction of Home Reports.  We should support its introduction as it represents a significant improvement on the current system.” 

And indeed that is exactly what the majority of the conveyancing trade are hunkering down to do. With ancillary service firms such as Wise Property Care gearing up to provide support for sellers, buyers and conveyancers as the new regime kicks in. Given that the conveyancing profession rode such storms as the introduction of the 1970 reforms, land registration, Sharp v Thomson and the abolition of the feudal system without imploding, its inbuilt flexibility should allow the wheels of property to keep turning, whilst factoring in this new element.

The failure of the profession to have their will exercised is symptomatic of a wider structural malaise.  Perhaps practitioners failed to engage with the process, believing the relevant Law Society committees would take up their cause on their behalf.  The Law Society conveyancing committee requires a mandate and instruction to proceed, and perhaps the pervasive apathy that has seen electoral turnout drop from above 80% to somewhere around 40% in only a generation has penetrated into law, too.  Without implying criticism, the inability of the conveyancing profession to exercise its will through the structural process proves the structure doesn’t work. Such a dismally unwanted outcome is in the interests of no one.  Solicitors either need to get a bit more mad about things, a bit more interested, a lot more engaged and a great deal more organised in future, otherwise the whole legal structure will be left to the whim of vote hungry politicians, determined to meddle unscrupulously for their own populist ends.