On the ground floor there is a dining and living-room area kitchen

On the ground floor there is a dining and living-room area, kitchen and bathroom and on the first floor there are two bedrooms, one with one balcony and the other with two. There is a private garden, use of a shared garden and the property also has its own private beach.Property two: New-style house in Lake Como.Price: £258,000.Agent: Casa Travella, 01322 660988.Agent’s details: This is a beautiful semi-detached house with fabulous views. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a living room, dining room and kitchen and there is around 70m2 space in the basement, which is huge and could be used however you prefer. Are we being realistic about this? We assume there are companies who take care of maintenance.”We’ve been talking about doing this for ages but ‘House Hunter’ has really spurred me on to do something about it and we now want to get going as quickly as possible.”Can you help?” THREE PROPERTIES FOR GRAHAM AND JO TO VIEW Property one: Apartment in 18th-century villa in Lake Maggiore.Price: £231,000.Agent: Casa Travella, 01322 660988.Agent’s details: This beautiful 18th-century house lies close to the lake.

We prefer period properties but would consider newer houses in the right location.”One thing we would like is a swimming pool, but we are happy to install one if the house has enough outdoor space. We expect to have to decorate – but we don’t want to have to take on a major renovation project. As for location, we would like to be near a village or town so that we can walk to a restaurant rather than have to take a cab or drive.”We are very open-minded about the property, although we would like a detached one. We travel quite a bit – I have my own business and my wife works for the BBC – but we hope to be able to spend as much time there as possible, perhaps four or five months a year if the weather is not too clever here.”We would like somewhere with summer sun but also to be within a couple of hours’ drive of the slopes for winter skiing. I don’t eat meat and Jo eats very little meat so we find Italian food is best. Graham and Jo Larking want to buy a holiday home, preferably in Italy.

They have a budget of around £200,000

THE PROBLEM
“My wife and I want to buy a house or villa, preferably in Italy, although we would consider France. In the meantime, those who are still buyerless after four months can only look enviously on a deal, signed and sealed in as many days.. At Clarke Willmott, Karen Wallis comments: “From a legal perspective, it has always been possible to conduct property deals within 24 hours. The magic ingredients are a willing seller and willing cash buyer.

With the increasing use of new technology, for example the ability to conduct property searches online, any potential legal delays within the conveyancing process have been minimised even further.”What slows down the process is the addition of more buyers and sellers to a chain, many of whom will be trying to co-ordinate mortgage offers and convenient dates for completion.”Add to that her doubts, and those of others, about the surveyors’ duty of care, and this is an issue that will run and run. However, the committee’s comments would be taken into account, she added.But that is unlikely to satisfy opponents. If the Government is going to introduce such a massively expensive and bureaucratic scheme, they should have the answers.”At the ODPM, a spokeswoman defended the principles behind the home information pack, citing research done in Denmark and Australia and the success of one estate agent in cutting fall-through rates by offering a seller’s pack for the past seven years. “We cannot get a satisfactory answer to our questions about what the reduction would be in national fall-through rates, or the time taken for acceptance of offer to exchange of contracts, or the costs to the consumer. In its recent report, the committee expressed doubts about whether the home information pack will speed up the home-buying process and what its impact will be on the number of houses coming on to the market.”On those two key issues the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) demonstrably failed to make the case for the pack and should scrap it immediately,” according to Splinta Nick Salmon, a co-ordinator, explains further.