More time for sellers due to HIP delay
June 2, 2008
Home Information Packs, or HIPs, have been at the centre of controversy since they were introduced by the government last year, and this has partly been due to the various delays that have been experienced with HIPs.
These packs were eventually rolled out to all residential properties for sale in England and Wales last December, but there has now been a further delay that could mean good news for homeowners looking to sell their homes. The delay could give homeowners more time to comply with new regulations relating to these packs.
The government had been intending to enforce the regulation in June of this year, whereby homeowners would need to have the pack ready and available before marketing the property for sale. However, the delay means that the regulation has been delayed until the end of this year.
This means that homeowners will be able to continue marketing their properties for sale providing they have ordered and paid for the HIP, even if the pack is not physically available when they start to market their homes. This could cut out huge delays for homeowners planning to sell up, which will come as good news given the other difficulties that homeowners are facing when it comes to selling their homes.
Written by Peter · Filed Under News Mortgages
What “huge delays”?
“this could cut out huge delays”??? As the trade body for independent pack providers, we considered the impact that the end to first day marketing would have - very little! The property can be marketed as soon as you have in place - the EPC (24/48 hours), title register and title plan (instantaneous), index and sale statement (5 minutes). The remain parts of the HIP are the local authority and drainage/water searches. The regulations state clearly that there is a 28 day window to provide the searches. At the present time searches are being returned within 10 working days - often sooner!
Why not approach those at grass roots level, for a real insight into the workings of the HIP industry?
EPC and IPPA are right that many of the ingredients of a HIP can be provided quickly. What they do not note is that in most cases the homeowner is throwing money away. The Energy Performance Certificate, although required by Brussels, is essentially useless, except as a negotiating tool to bring asking prices down in a bear market. There are numerous cases on record where the EPC as compiled does not truly reflect the energy performance of a house. Most sixth form science students could have devised a better tool than the one mandated by the government.
The rest of the pack is completely useless, as most buyers’ solicitors will make their own searches, for a number of reasons but mostly because they want proper local authority searches, they want searches that are not included in the pack, and they want the searches to be as current as possible (which will not be the case if the property has been on the market for some time. The good news is that the Tories have promised to abolish HIPs. After a couple of years more we will not have to hear from pack providers about their redundant and pointless offerings.
To say a HIP is “completely useless” suggests dinosaur thought processes at work. The HIP gets information up front when otherwise there are delays after offer acceptance. Starts people thinking about that kind of stuff. Most solicitors & lenders do accept personal searches. But official searches are better. How about an instant online refresh of the search within the original cost? There is nothing to stop people from putting in the HIP the extra searches, even a Home Condition Report, even quotes for works discovered by the HCR, even detailed invoices for urgent works done because of the HCR. How about that for improving a sale process and the housing stock to boot? And IPPA is spot on - only 2 items are needed to market after the concession ends, unnecessarily delayed until 31/12/08: EPC and title evidence. No delay whatsoever in obtaining either. We need far less misinformation and far more forward thinking.
The whole thing is a waste of time with out the HCR!
Dinosaurs indeed. For the proof of the puuding see the figures produced by the second largest estate agent in England and Wales showing that in over 4,500 sales progressed since 1st August, those with the benefit of a HIP exchanged on average 12 days quicker than those without - I shouldn’t have to say any more.
My house has been on the market since Nov 2007.I have now been told that the Hip has to be paid as the house has now been 7 months on the market.We where told that the Hip would be taken out of the proceeds from the sale.Is there a limitaion of when it has to be paid.