Scottish Home Report explained: what buyers and sellers need to know

If you're buying or selling a home in Scotland, the Home Report is one of the most important documents you'll encounter. Unlike England and Wales, where structural surveys are optional (and often skipped), Scotland has required a mandatory Home Report on every residential property marketed for sale since 2009. Here's what it contains and how to use it.

What is a Scottish Home Report?

A Home Report is a pack of three documents that must be commissioned by the seller before the property is listed:

1. Single Survey — an independent structural survey carried out by a RICS-qualified surveyor, including condition ratings for every major element of the property and a market valuation.
2. Energy Report — an EPC-equivalent assessment of the property's energy efficiency, its environmental impact, and a potential rating if recommended improvements are made.
3. Property Questionnaire — a seller's self-disclosure covering council tax band, factoring arrangements, alterations, and known disputes or issues.

Sellers must provide a copy of the Home Report to any interested buyer on request, free of charge. Refusing to share it is a breach of the legislation.

Understanding the condition ratings

The Single Survey uses a three-point rating scale for every element it inspects — roof, walls, windows, heating, drainage, and so on:

• Rating 1 — Satisfactory. No action required at the time of the survey.
• Rating 2 — Repair or replacement needed soon. Not an immediate safety concern but will require attention within the short to medium term. These are maintenance items to budget for.
• Rating 3 — Urgent. Immediate action required to prevent further deterioration, or a safety concern. A Rating 3 is serious and should be investigated further before offering.

Most properties carry some Rating 2s — this is normal wear and maintenance. One or two Rating 3s are a different matter: they indicate something that needs fixing now and may affect your mortgage offer or insurance.

How to use the valuation

The surveyor's market valuation in the Single Survey is not the same as the Home Report valuation — it is an independent professional opinion of the open-market value at the date of inspection. This figure is used by mortgage lenders when deciding how much to lend.

Key points:

• If you offer above the valuation, your lender may only lend against the valuation figure — the gap is yours to fund.
• In competitive markets (especially Edinburgh and Glasgow), offers frequently exceed the Home Report valuation. This is normal but means you need cash to cover the difference.
• If the valuation has aged (Home Reports are valid for 12 weeks), a lender may require a new survey or add a retention to the mortgage offer.
• A valuation significantly below the asking price is a negotiating point — ask the seller why and what has changed.

What the Property Questionnaire reveals

The questionnaire is completed by the seller and covers factoring (the management of common areas in tenements and shared developments), any alterations that required council consent, whether consent was obtained, and known boundary or neighbour disputes. This section is legally self-reported, so its reliability depends on the seller's honesty — but any false declaration creates legal exposure for them.

What the Home Report doesn't cover

The Single Survey is a visual inspection — surveyors do not open walls, dig up drains, or test specialist systems in depth. It also doesn't cover:

• Drainage CCTV (a separate specialist survey)
• Timber and damp (may be flagged for further investigation)
• Electrical installation condition (a separate EICR)
• Area-level risks: crime, schools, planning applications, flood risk beyond the EPC section

Getting the most from a Home Report as a buyer

Read the whole document — not just the valuation. Note every Rating 2 and all Rating 3s. Ask the selling agent for estimates on any Rating 3 items before you offer. Use the Energy Report's improvement list to understand future capital expenditure.

For area-level context — flood risk, crime, nearby schools, planning applications and sold price comparables — a Property Snapshot report complements the Home Report by covering everything the surveyor doesn't. For Scottish addresses, Property Snapshot can also read and extract the key data from your Home Report PDF automatically, surfacing the valuation, condition ratings and EPC details alongside all the open-data sources in one place.