The fondness of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors for Home Reports may have more to do with its members' revenues than with the utility of the reports themselves.

The valuation element may be over-riding any benefit the review of condition of the property might give ("Home Reports are strangling housing market say experts", The Herald, July 1 & Letters, July 2).

As a former conveyancing practitioner and a fairly recent consumer, I remain unconvinced that these reports, in their present form, can help any recovery in the housing market.

The worst effect is on the second-time buyer, most likely selling a property with a relatively low price: the marginal effect of the report's price on the overall cost of moving is disproportionate and must be a factor in slowing this market.

Brian Chrystal,

55 Craiglockhart Road, Edinburgh.

The Home Report is a positive development providing detailed information that dispenses with multiple low-detail valuations of the same property. The review planned should consider whether three-monthly valuations are necessary and if they are, then perhaps the prospective buyer should pay.

We must not revert to when home buyers experienced the frustration and wasted costs of repeated mortgage valuations for unsuccessful bids. Whose interests did that serve? I suggest the reason fewer houses are coming onto the market is not due to Home Report but to a depressed economy, the same reason offers-under are being made.

Andrew Buist,

Estir Bogside, Alyth.