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SELLERS FORCED TO PAY FOR BUILDING INSPECTIONS

Monday, January 25, 2010

HOMEBUYERS will save thousands with plans for new laws forcing vendors to fork out for building and pest inspections. And people selling older properties could be forced to disclose the building's energy efficiency rating and whether it contains asbestos.

A timetable was approved by Government last week with Premier Kristina Keneally's tick of approval.

NSW would be the first state to change the system after the ACT.

"We are hoping to streamline buying property I would hope by earlier this year," Labor MP Matt Brown, commissioned to prepare a report for Cabinet, told the Daily Telegraph yesterday.

"Purchasers need to know as much as they can about what they are buying."

Real estate groups have supported the move to provide more information to buyers but are apprehensive on what legal resource there would be if an inspection report proved inaccurate.

Under the proposed model people who fail to secure a property at auction would no longer be hundreds of dollars out of pocket.

However the successful bidder would eventually bear the cost of the inspections on settlement.

Mr Brown said it would be a win for property hunters and vendors.

"At the moment some people are spending thousands of dollars," he said yesterday.

"More and more agents are encouraging people to go to auction and that creates a sense of urgency.

"People want to bid but have no time to get a building & pest inspection report. Once the hammer falls the buyer gets the property warts and all."

The ACT plan where the vendor passes the inspection cost on to the buyer after the property has been purchased will be considered here.

Real Estate Institute of NSW chief executive officer Tim McKibbin said the institute supported the principal of providing more information to potential buyers.  "An informed market is a happy market," he said.

"Whether or not this process protects the vendor and the purchaser is a question I have," he said.

He said that if a pre-purchase inspection became part of a contract offered by a vendor, there would need to be measures put in place to ensure the buyer had redress if the inspection missed flaws in a property.

"What the purchaser's rights are against that service provider is something that is glaring to me," he said.

Angela Kamper, State Political Reporter

TAKEN FROM SYDNEY MORNING HERALD MONDAY 25 JANUARY 2010

 

- Angela Kamper, State Political Reporter