A small team, drawn from the Home Buying and Selling Advisory Group, representing the interests of DETR, the DTI, HM Land Registry, NAEA, and RICS visited Denmark in early April 1999. This paper summarises the key findings of this further work on international comparisons. Denmark The Danish system of housing market transactions has recently evolved to incorporate the assembly of a range of standardised information about a property before it is marketed for sale. The main advantage of the Danish system is that it reduces the window of uncertainty between an acceptable offer being made, and contracts being effectively exchanged. This takes about one week on average.
Completion can then be at a leisurely pace, often up to three months.
The practice of a seller commissioning a survey report has only been a feature of the Danish system since early 1997. Sellers' have historically been liable for 20 years for any defects not disclosed to the buyer in the contract of sale. A new law was introduced which exempted sellers from this liability provided they commissioned a survey report and provided an insurance quotation covering any hidden defects not picked up by the surveyor. The survey report is prepared by a state approved and qualified surveyor who carries out an inspection of a property. The procedure for undertaking the survey is similar to that for the Homebuyer Report, with the surveyor focusing on observable problems rather than a general description.