Home Information Packs suspended
Home Information Packs (HIPs) have been suspended by the new
coalition Government.
HIPs were first introduced in 2007 and their aim was to make
home buying easier, but with each pack costing hundreds of pounds
they have not been popular with sellers or estate agents and have
had no significant effect on the time taken to complete a sale or
purchase.
Anyone selling their home from 21 May will no longer be required
to produce a HIP.
The EPC, or Energy Performance Certificate, will be retained.
This gives information about the home's energy efficiency on a
scale of A – G. Although this may be useful to a buyer considering
which electrical appliance to buy, in practice it seems to have had
a negligible effect on a buyer's decision to purchase a particular
property.
The Certificate will have to be produced within 28 days of the
property being placed on the market.
The buyer will now be required to carry out and pay for the
local search and water search at a cost of around £200. However,
many buyers have had to pay for an additional local search as
generally the HIP contained personal searches which were not
acceptable to lenders.
This news will leave thousands who work in the Home Information
Pack industry with a bleak future.
