Home information packs suspended
After a week in office, the new coalition government today announced that the requirement for home sellers to provide home information packs will be suspended pending primary legislation to abolish them entirely.
The suspension of the controversial sellers packs will take effect from midnight on Friday 21 May 2010.
Sellers will still be required to commission an energy performance certificate before marketing their property.
The move follows election manifesto commitments from both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties to scrap the packs.
Communities secretary Eric Pickles said he had taken the action swiftly to avoid any uncertainty and prevent a slump in the already fragile housing market.
He said: ‘The expensive and unnecessary HIP has increased the cost and hassle of selling homes and is stifling a fragile housing market.
‘HIPs are history. This action will encourage sellers back into the market and help the market and the economy recover.’
Housing minister Grant Shapps said: ‘This is a great example of how this new government is getting straight down to work by cutting away pointless red tape that is strangling the market.’
He said there would be no substitute packs to replace HIPs when they are ultimately abolished by legislation later in the year, but there will be nothing in the legislation to prevent people from marketing other products like exchange-ready packs. The market would decide whether the public thought they were needed, he said.
Comments
Hip Hip Hip Hooray
So today the government have suspended the HI. Good riddance to it and all the agents and assessors making hey while the sun shined out of a crappy, ill thought out bit of legislation. Out of work assessors will just have to find another racket to jump onto to fleece hard pressed home owners out of their hard earned cash. Sorry if you are one of those loosing their jobs but this legislation has wasted billions and stunted the housing market. Maybe you should have seen that the gravy train was never going to last once a government with some common sense got back in You should have used your skills for something a little more productive.
KEEN IDIOTS!
Let the Home Information pack fiasco be a warning to those keen idiots who want to meddle in matters which they do not fully understand.
Is anyone going to apologise to all those estates agents who were against HIPs but had to implement them at cost to them, all the sellers who needlessly paid more for their sales because they had to have a HIP and those poor people who paid out thousands of pounds to train as home inspectors.
There should be a public enquiry about this scandal.
Decision to be
Decision to be applauded.
Now- how about an immediate ban on referral fees?
HIPs/Referral Fees
Because there's no justification for a ban on referral fees
goodbye to HIPs
I like this government more each day! Nothing like getting on with keeping election promises. I look forward to more of this approach; roll back the Blair/Brown Labour police state. And maybe, just maybe, realistic Legal Aid rates? I don't suppose we can have everything!
Can't have everything
To the reader who suggests that legal aid rates might increase says wrily, Can't have everything - I suggest he gets used to the idea of something considerably worse than can't have anything.
Goodbye Tesco Law
The party's over for the last governments appointees in the legal services apparatus. Goodbye to all the mickey mouse academics and market research monkies making a good living out of crass stupidity.
The unholy alliance between the government and the money men is broken. Remember that ABSs were proposed long before the banking crisis.
Perhaps the defeated should quietly go and work for Tesco. At least if they made nice buns in the bakery the consumer would benefit.
Home Information Packs - how did that ever get through in the first place?
Anyone employed in a law firm
Anyone employed in a law firm should regret the decision to suspend HIPs. Why?
1. loss of early contact with clients, often before estate agents
2. loss of revenue
3. agents will have referral fees thrown at them as firms try to attract extra work to make up for 1 and 2
At a time when conveyancing firms standards are at an all time low - firms who were slick at HIPs (i.e who could actually promise a HIP in 48 hours and actually deliver) could clean up on the conveyancing. Now these slick firms are back compteting with the dross of so many HIgh Street firms, where price then becomes the issue for many clients.
A recent HIP (with up to date searches) meant an exchange was possible within days, and certainly reduced the work needed by a Buyer.
Now, Buyers will have to rely on getting local searches, with some Cuuncils taking over a month. That delay will get worse, as most conveyancers will now go back to official searches, not HIP personal ones. Back to the delays.
A HIP was an auction pack, with information up front. They were a good idea on that score.
OH well.
HIPS abolished
Spot on !! Conveyancers were best placed to own the HIP space. It was the perfect opportunity to win clients early and release the grip over clients that agents had ( and will now have again)
I'm sorry but this makes no
I'm sorry but this makes no sense at all. The conveyancing process worked fine before HIPs, and it will work fine after them.
In my experience (in London anyway) the days of searches taking weeks to come through are long gone. It can happen, but most councils now return searches within days, given advances in electronic archiving and databases. Many lenders also accept personal searches, and many also accept search insurance.
As for "exchanging within days", you show me a solicitor that is willing to do that and I'll show you a negligence claim. Part of the problem is that clients (read consumers) want it both ways. They want everything done yesterday, and at the same time want guarantees that everything will be hassle free. When you (the solicitor) are accountable to both the client and the bank who is financing the transaction it's rarely sufficient to rely on pre-packaged, standardised information provided by the seller.
Fact is, a house is the biggest purchase of your life, it shouldn't be the same as choosing a box of cereal off the shelf. You can't keep everybody happy of course, but you can manage their expectations.
Comparing a HIP to an auction pack isn't appropriate either. At an auction, buyers usually know and understand the risks. Especially with commercial properties, buyers are often investors who take the odd gamble and have strategies to deal with problems if they arise. Not so your average home buyer, who just wants to buy a home, settle in, and enjoy it with peace of mind. An investor might leave a few stones unturned in the hunt for a deal, but a homebuyer's usual approach is different.
As for referral fees I'm not interested. My job is not to do deals with estate agents. When buying I've had estate agents moan and groan at me and threaten "never to refer work to me again" (having never referred work to me previously, but anyway) when things don't go their way, and I have to remind them harshly that they work for the seller, I work for the buyer.
I believe that I retain clients through putting in the effort and going beyond the call of duty, not slapping a standard pre-packaged HIP in front of a client with a contract and saying "sign here". When solicitors need to get in bed with Estate Agents and start compromising their independence and integrity, that's when the problems start.
Tanel Kagan,
Kagan & Co.
Kirstie Allsopp - how about a
Kirstie Allsopp - how about a post on here please. Justify why they should have been scrapped and not altered.
Home information packs suspended
Suspend I hope means re-vamp some other pack - like the HIP but without searches, as a compromise. Title up front (with all documents referred to in the registered title, not like you have to do now, which means an incomplete picture) is a very good thing. No 28 days to produce, but up front. Get rid of the searches as that was the main cost.
It seems fair that when putting your house on the market, you produce title upfront - would stop so many people using crap lawyers who never send their own purchasing clients a copy of their title deeds at the end. That is all the HIP should demand - and a property information form (PIQ like now but slightly more informative) which reveals relevant things such as disputes and building works.
I am happy to help advise, as I have a proven drive to of raise conveyancing standards - when the profession currently has so many firms who have inadvertently lowered theirs.
Legal profession survives - just.
You have tried to break the legal profession but you have failed. Go back to your commune.
Fractured hips
Personally I feel very sad for all those baggage handlers failed web site designers taxi drivers and so on who spent an enormous sum on learning how to photocopy and bind some searches and official copies..Imagine how you would feel if someone derailed your gravy train
HIPs
Why keep the EPC?
Surely, if a buyer wants an EPC he is free to make his own arrangements. It should not be incumbent on a seller to provide this. I do not believe most buyers even read the EPC and as far as I am aware there is no evidence that an adverse EPC would deter a prospective buyer from proceeding with the transaction.
Anyway, a very good start from our new government.
ANOTHER GOVERNMENT U TURN
It's hardly surprising that the government have managed,yet again, to do another U turn..that's all they seem to do when opposition comes into power. Going round in circles without any clear objectives. The only reason why HIPS failed was because they were not properly monitored and it would appear anyone could compile a pack. Scrapping of HIPS is not going to improve the housing market with the lenders more ever apparent inability to lend, not to mention the global recession is stil here. Why anyone thinks scrapping HIPS is suddenly going to boom the housing market is yet to be seen. HIPS should have been modified, the providers carefully selected and referral fees should have been banned. Once again, the government are not asking the right questions so how they could they possible find the right solution.