<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>maccard</author><text>I live in Scotland, and the process here is the seller has to undertake a survey with someone who is accredited. In practice this means that the same 3-4 firms end up doing most of the surveys. It&amp;#x27;s not just some ranodmer saying &amp;quot;yeah, looks good mate&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In the US this only costs a few hundred dollars for a typical house, which is a tiny fraction of the overall transaction price.&lt;p&gt;You know what&amp;#x27;s even better than _only_  a couple of hundred dollars? The seller paying it once.</text><parent_chain><item><author>nradov</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s not sane, it&amp;#x27;s crazy! As a buyer why would I trust a surveyor selected by the seller? I would rather pay inspector myself for an independent opinion. In the US this only costs a few hundred dollars for a typical house, which is a tiny fraction of the overall transaction price.</text></item><item><author>ClumsyPilot</author><text>In sane countries the seller must comission a survey and provide it to the buyer. The UK system where each buyer comissions a survey is absurd.&lt;p&gt;I do not understand how the mortgage helps you - you are still paying for it, and if the survey uncovers issues, you either take mortgage on a house with problems, or you are out of pocket.&lt;p&gt;If you pull out, and next house you view has issues too, you have to take it because at some poijt you run out of money</text></item><item><author>gambiting</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt;With housing (in UK) there is no competition on quality because the seller doesn&amp;#x27;t have to disclose any problems with the house. If it falls of a cliff the minute you sign on the dotted line, it&amp;#x27;s your problem.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m in the UK and that&amp;#x27;s absolutely not true. If you think the owner knew about the problem and purposefully omitted telling you, then you definitely have a court case and any law firm worth their salt will win this. I bought a house recently and the documents the sellers had to fill out for the solicitors very clearly say there are are no known issues with this house, so if that&amp;#x27;s a lie then the sale can be rendered null and void.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;You have to pay for the surveyor to find out any issues the house might have, and that means you can only view a few houses before you&amp;#x27;ve paid the house price in survey fees.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve had a few mortgages so far and I&amp;#x27;m yet to find a bank not willing to cover the cost of a full survey, as the bank also wants to know the house they are securing the loan against is actually worth the money.</text></item><item><author>ClumsyPilot</author><text>A competitive market would enable me to sort by salary and benefits and apply for the best job.&lt;p&gt;However companies don&amp;#x27;t want to compete on salary, and potentialy drive them up - they want maximum leverage. They get more leverage if process is obscure, so that you only agree salary late in the process and for the applicant, pulling out is risky.&lt;p&gt;The market is not really free - its being manipulated by one side.&lt;p&gt;Similarly with healthcare you don&amp;#x27;t know how much you will be charged upfront, so there is no competition on price.&lt;p&gt;With housing (in UK) there is no competition on quality because the seller doesn&amp;#x27;t have to disclose any problems with the house. If it falls of a cliff the minute you sign on the dotted line, it&amp;#x27;s your problem.&lt;p&gt;You have to pay for the surveyor to find out any issues the house might have, and that means you can only view a few houses before you&amp;#x27;ve paid the house price in survey fees.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Companies excluding Coloradans from remote jobs to avoid sharing salary ranges</title><url>https://www.reddit.com/r/Denver/comments/nh7s8f/but_not_in_colorado/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ClumsyPilot</author><text>For the same reason you trust an auditor and accountant hired by Tesla to produce quartely earnings report - they are on the hook if they lie.&lt;p&gt;Surely you do not hire an independant accountant every time you buy stocks?</text><parent_chain><item><author>nradov</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s not sane, it&amp;#x27;s crazy! As a buyer why would I trust a surveyor selected by the seller? I would rather pay inspector myself for an independent opinion. In the US this only costs a few hundred dollars for a typical house, which is a tiny fraction of the overall transaction price.</text></item><item><author>ClumsyPilot</author><text>In sane countries the seller must comission a survey and provide it to the buyer. The UK system where each buyer comissions a survey is absurd.&lt;p&gt;I do not understand how the mortgage helps you - you are still paying for it, and if the survey uncovers issues, you either take mortgage on a house with problems, or you are out of pocket.&lt;p&gt;If you pull out, and next house you view has issues too, you have to take it because at some poijt you run out of money</text></item><item><author>gambiting</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt;With housing (in UK) there is no competition on quality because the seller doesn&amp;#x27;t have to disclose any problems with the house. If it falls of a cliff the minute you sign on the dotted line, it&amp;#x27;s your problem.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m in the UK and that&amp;#x27;s absolutely not true. If you think the owner knew about the problem and purposefully omitted telling you, then you definitely have a court case and any law firm worth their salt will win this. I bought a house recently and the documents the sellers had to fill out for the solicitors very clearly say there are are no known issues with this house, so if that&amp;#x27;s a lie then the sale can be rendered null and void.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;You have to pay for the surveyor to find out any issues the house might have, and that means you can only view a few houses before you&amp;#x27;ve paid the house price in survey fees.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve had a few mortgages so far and I&amp;#x27;m yet to find a bank not willing to cover the cost of a full survey, as the bank also wants to know the house they are securing the loan against is actually worth the money.</text></item><item><author>ClumsyPilot</author><text>A competitive market would enable me to sort by salary and benefits and apply for the best job.&lt;p&gt;However companies don&amp;#x27;t want to compete on salary, and potentialy drive them up - they want maximum leverage. They get more leverage if process is obscure, so that you only agree salary late in the process and for the applicant, pulling out is risky.&lt;p&gt;The market is not really free - its being manipulated by one side.&lt;p&gt;Similarly with healthcare you don&amp;#x27;t know how much you will be charged upfront, so there is no competition on price.&lt;p&gt;With housing (in UK) there is no competition on quality because the seller doesn&amp;#x27;t have to disclose any problems with the house. If it falls of a cliff the minute you sign on the dotted line, it&amp;#x27;s your problem.&lt;p&gt;You have to pay for the surveyor to find out any issues the house might have, and that means you can only view a few houses before you&amp;#x27;ve paid the house price in survey fees.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Companies excluding Coloradans from remote jobs to avoid sharing salary ranges</title><url>https://www.reddit.com/r/Denver/comments/nh7s8f/but_not_in_colorado/</url></story>