The Residential Property Surveyors Association (RPSA) has launched a new ‘Home Review’ service designed to identify key structural risks and any necessary works that may be needed to a property prior to them being discovered by the buyer’s surveyor.

The idea is to provide buyers, sellers and agents with advanced warning of any major issues which might jeopardise the sale of a property.

The Home Review, which looks to bring more homes to the market with a clean bill of health, has been exclusively developed to focus purely on any potential structural issues within a property, such as subsidence, a failed roof structure or widespread rot, which create an immediate obstacle to sale.

This aims to immediately solve a common inefficiency in the buying process that sees buyers pay up to £1,000 to commission a full survey, only for it to identify a problem of such significance that they are no longer interested in the property.

The RPSA says that the Home Review provides timely insight into such issues so buyers can be confident in commissioning a full survey, ‘knowing that it is not going to identify any deal-killing flaws’.

This will also provide sellers with the opportunity to address known issues before going to market if, for instance, the cost of the repair works can be justified by the subsequent value of their property.

All of this is particularly important when dealing with chains. Undiscovered issues result in a much higher chance of a buyer pulling out, affecting everyone involved, including the agent’s client. But a Home Review significantly reduces these risks, according to RPSA chairman, Alan Milstein.

He said: “Buyers suffer delays and lose millions when their survey identifies deal-breaking critical issues that could have been resolved before the property was marketed.”

The RPSA is going to trial the inclusion of the Home Review within WiggyWam’s Sellers Pack.

Milstein added: “At the RPSA, working with WiggyWam, we believe this innovative new approach of the seller identifying critical defects at the pre-marketing stage significantly reduces the risk of purchases being aborted after an offer has been accepted.

“Saving time and money for buyers and sellers can only be a good thing and the RPSA look forward to creating a new dynamic in the home buying and selling sector.”

WiggyWam CEO, Silas J. Lees, commented: “All agents know the stomach-in-knots feeling of their commissions being on the line, or the chain about to collapse because of an issue that could have been resolved much earlier on in the marketing process. Reliance on caveat emptor doesn’t help the seller when they can’t move to their dream home as their eventual sale price is less than they had expected.

“As a central part of our Sellers Pack, the Home Review will allow transactions to move very quickly by removing uncertainty. All of this information needs to be compiled during the transaction anyway, so why not do it at the very start? It’s an effortless way to remove as much stress as possible for all involved, slash transaction times, increase trust, and allow agents to bank their fees more quickly, fees which can sometimes feel like they’re very much ‘on the line’.”