Hips Extended To All Homes

December 14, 2007

Home Information Packs will be rolled out to cover all properties in England and Wales from today.

It means everyone selling a home will now have to provide a pack for prospective buyers.
Among other documents HIPS will need to include an energy performance certificate and standard searches.

They are designed to speed up the buying process and cut the number of transactions that collapse late in the day. But critics say they will distort the housing market and lead to a fall in the number of starter homes put up for sale.

They also insist they will make it harder for people to get on to the property ladder. But Independent research commissioned by the Government found no evidence of any impact on transactions, prices or mortgages.

A parliamentary committee has lambasted the Communities and Local Government (CLG) department for errors it made in its rollout of home information packs (Hips). The committee's report criticised CLG for delaying the introduction of Hips and for weakening the documents by not making home condition reports (HCRs) mandatory, as well as for failing to engage industry stakeholders in their implementation.

It said it would have to see the relevant data before it could judge whether Hips had sped up the home-buying process, but deemed that the distorting effect their launch had on the market was minor and therefore insufficient excuse for delaying their introduction.

Commenting on these findings, the Association of Hip Providers agreed that these documents were not rolled out quickly enough, but vowed to continue working with the government on improving these packs, including making HCRs compulsory.

Yet while Peter Bolton King from the National Association of estate agents also agreed with many of the committee's censures, he also reiterated his organisation's hostile stance towards Hips, describing them as detrimental to the property market and to consumers.