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LAYSTAR

Posts: 8
Joined: 4/3/2007

Home Information Pack

I wondered what people's perceptions and views are of the Home Information Pack which will become a legal requirement for residential property sellers in England and Wales from June this year.

The radio advertising campaign suggests it will take the stress out of selling. What do you think?

What of the buyer? Would you trust the information that is compiled by someone that the seller has commissioned?

Report Abuse | Date 23/3/2007 12:37:09 PM

tickeverybox

Posts: 11
Joined: 24/1/2007

RE: Home Information Pack (in reply to LAYSTAR)

HIP's have good intentions but in practice will not work.

There are many grey areas and discrepencies, perhaps too many for me to go into now, but my main gripes are:

1. It's a legal offence punishable by fine if a HIP is not available to a buyer
2. Searches and reports are not time sensitive. If the vendor pulls the property from the market they are allowed to re-market within 12 months without re-newing the contents
3. The EPC is merely a disguise for the government to 'green audit' the UK's housing stock. Coincidentally, Right to Buys are excluded (saving local authority money), semi-commercial, investment, portfolios are all excluded.
4. The EPC will become a way to penalise households that do not meet minimum standards.
5. The HCR is a farce.

I could go on. For more visit http://www.tickeverybox.com/forums

Report Abuse | Date 5/4/2007 4:54:40 PM

moveon

Posts: 6
Joined: 12/4/2007

RE: Home Information Pack (in reply to LAYSTAR)

Home information packs

The quick run down, if you are buying a family members house or flat you do not need one...

However if your property is marketed before 1st June 2007 and is continuously marketed throughout the intervening period, you do not require a HIP until 31st December 2007.

The required documents are:
Home Information Pack index
Energy Performance Certificate, pay no more than £90
Sale statement
Evidence of title
Local and drainage-&-water searches
Additional information for leasehold and commonhold sales, where appropriate.

The authorised documents include:

Contents forms

You do not need a home condition report, do not be overcharged by estate agents or others in to getting one...

Mortgage lenders will not accept a home condition report, they will insist on there own survey, so do not waste money getting one...

Plus for the same reason they do not help purchasers, as to get a mortgage they will need to pay for a survey from the BS or whoever.

"Research by the Council of Mortgage Lenders shows that most lenders still expect to be carrying out their own inspections five years after the introduction of the packs on June 1st 2007."

Click here to compile your own DIY PACK. http://homemove.wordpress.com/

Do not let Estate agents do it for you...The can charge in excess of £1200..

The cost of a Home Information Pack, including the Home Condition Report, is estimated to be around £600 - £1500 by the Government.

From the Guardian.
The main unavoidable cost is the energy performance certificate, which must be carried out by a qualified inspector and will cost at least £100.

The Land Registry (landregistry.gov.uk) will supply evidence of title for £6 and the title plan, again £6. After that, costs vary according to each local authority.

The Department of Communities and Local Government says the searches that the pack must include are the local land charges register (form LLC1) and the answers to "local enquiries". This looks superficially cheap - often just £10-£15. But the sting is form con29, which the local authority will compile for you at a cost of £150 or more. Some councils (such as the London borough of Barnet) charge as much as £288.

One way around this is to employ a specialist company to carry out the work. There are several of these available over the internet, with prices starting at around £70.

The option of doing it entirely by yourself at the council offices appears to have been barred by the DCLG. It says: "People can put 'personal searches' in the pack containing this information, provided that the searches and the people providing them comply with the regulations. Personal searches are carried out by specialist companies who do this work and not by the seller himself."

A drainage and water search is also required. Contact your local water company for costs. As an example, Thames Water charges £44.18 for a residential search, delivered within three days.

Altogether, a DIY pack is therefore going to cost at least £225 - half as much as a commercially-produced Hip.

Kind regards

Chris Davies

< Message edited by moveon -- 11/5/2007 7:50:19 AM >

Report Abuse | Date 12/4/2007 5:17:44 PM

LAYSTAR

Posts: 8
Joined: 4/3/2007

RE: Home Information Pack (in reply to LAYSTAR)

All good comments so far

I have noticed that the official HIP website has just had a face-lift (http://www.homeinformationpack.gov.uk/) which is good news because the marketing campaign on the radio certainly didn't gell with the web site as it was.

On the web site it is also nice to see that there is advice on how people can compile their own HIP so avoiding the costs if people with to do so.

Perhaps another consideration of this new ruling is that, as you would expect, estate agents will be first to market with HIP services to offer their customers. This is all very well but will sellers who get their HIPs from their estate agent then be locked in?

The scenario I am thinking through is that an agent will offer an HIP as a 'no sale no fee' option to make it very attractive, i.e. you pay for it when you have loads of money from the sale of your property. However, if the agent doesn't perform well and things drag on, the seller would ordinarily choose another agent. Now though, the agent has a lock-in clause because of course the seller will first have to pay the agent for the HIP service, which could be at a hiked up price when compared with other methods of getting a HIP.

What do you think?

Report Abuse | Date 20/4/2007 12:02:20 PM

Richard Webster

Posts: 21
Joined: 25/8/2006

RE: Home Information Pack (in reply to LAYSTAR)

Yes, you can do your own or use a solicitor to do it, as apart from the Energy Certificate, it is all stuff solicitors know about anyway. I haven't quite worked out why people should pay a lot of money for a HIP creation company to charge more for the pack when a solicitor ought to be able to be slightly cheaper.

If the searches are part of the pack when the buyer's offer is accepted subject to contarct then there will be a small saving of time, but they will still need to get their mortgage offer and the buyer's solicitor will need to check the paperwork and ask questions about it as we do at the moment.

I'm redoing my website and there will be stuff on there about HIPS soon - if you want to look at the moment, the URL iswww.rwco.co.uk.

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients.

Report Abuse | Date 24/4/2007 6:48:36 PM

moveon

Posts: 6
Joined: 12/4/2007

RE: Home Information Pack (in reply to LAYSTAR)

Beware of grubby estate agents bringing gifts..

Hamptons estate agents have announced they will be providing clients who instruct them with a free HIP.

This is the first major agent to announce such an offer and includes providing all the compulsory items in a HIP, which they claim will normally cost £500.

Hamptons state that the offer may be withdrawn at any time, and sellers may have to pay a fee if they withdraw their property from sale within 12 months of instruction.

Regards

Chris
The home information pack

< Message edited by moveon -- 26/4/2007 8:16:58 AM >

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Report Abuse | Date 26/4/2007 8:15:26 AM

kevinmorley

Posts: 6
Joined: 12/9/2007

RE: Home Information Pack (in reply to LAYSTAR)

Hi I represent a site called http://www.quickmovenow.com who are the largest independent provider of home sale solutions in the UK, they understand the problems that can crop up when trying to sell your home.

As a private buyer, Quick Move Now does not need a HIP, removing some of the cost and hassle from house selling.

What they do is simple – they help people who need a fast and easy house sale with the certainty that only a professional homebuyer can provide.

What's the catch? There isn't one. they pay up to 90% of the appraised value of your home based on the opinions of 3 independent local Estate Agents. There are no charges to obtain an offer on your home, and they can even pay up to £500 towards your solicitor's fees.

Get your free estimate and start moving on!

Report Abuse | Date 12/9/2007 3:26:50 PM

jennyhicks

Posts: 2
Joined: 15/4/2008

RE: Home Information Pack (in reply to LAYSTAR)

If there isn't enough unnecesary details to go through when buying and selling houses, not to mention the extra cost of the Hips and EPC. I used an online Hips provider http://www.hipview.co.uk and they managed to explain things simply with regards to what this thing was actually meant for. Still, a waste of money though. Will home buyers really take notice, I just don't know.

Report Abuse | Date 17/6/2008 9:35:26 AM

graham

Posts: 1
Joined: 11/7/2008

RE: Home Information Pack (in reply to LAYSTAR)

Home Information Packs finally became mandatory for all homes on 14 December 2007 with the last phase of the roll out extended to include one and two bed properties. Now all residential properties being placed on the market will require a Home Information Pack.

The scheme has seen a number of delays primarily because not enough energy assessors were trained and in place to carry out the all important energy performance reviews – now it’s full steam ahead for the Government. Admittedly, the delays have caused a great deal of unrest within the industry and for the many people who had given up their jobs and retrained as energy assessors it has been doubly frustrating and worrying. However, as most agents and HIP providers have now had the opportunity of becoming familiar with the process of compiling the packs, the full implementation should now run smoothly.

In it’s recent announcement the Government did extend the provisional regulations up to 1 June 2008. This means that until June properties can be marketed from day one without a completed pack so long as the seller can demonstrate that a HIP and EPC has been requested. In it’s ongoing review the government has also hi-lighted some problems with obtaining the leasehold information for flats and have subsequently extended the transitional provisions so that most of the leasehold information previously classified as Required (Compulsory) will be Authorized (voluntary). The exception is the Lease itself which must be included in the pack.

1stforhips is one of the leading hips provider in UK. We provide the pack with eight other free services worth of around £250.00. Get your HIP pack to increase your marking exposer of your property. Call 0844 556 0122 for further information

Report Abuse | Date 11/7/2008 1:30:08 PM

Richard Webster

Posts: 21
Joined: 25/8/2006

RE: Home Information Pack (in reply to LAYSTAR)

quote:

In it’s recent announcement the Government did extend the provisional regulations up to 1 June 2008. This means that until June properties can be marketed from day one without a completed pack so long as the seller can demonstrate that a HIP and EPC has been requested.

The deadline has since been extended so this was out of date when it was posted.

_____________________________

Report Abuse | Date 14/7/2008 1:16:13 PM

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