It is clear from recent articles and letters on HIPs that the issue is far from closed.


I do very little conveyancing, but recently accepted instructions from an executor in a sale and approached a conveyancing colleague in a local firm to find out how the HIP had changed her procedures. She told me she tries not to get involved in the HIP, which she regards as an irrelevance. When the house is sold, the seller's solicitor proceeds much as they did before, except that the buyer's solicitor extracts the basic searches from the HIP.



The HIP appears to be nothing more than an expensive marketing tool and a very poor one at that. It certainly makes no economic sense to retain it in its present form. But it is hard to see how it can ever be improved.



The original idea of having a Home Condition Report and necessary searches 'up front' in order to speed up the system was plainly flawed. In a free market, with the parties at arm's length, you can no more expect the seller to pay for a survey meant for the buyer than you can expect the buyer to accept one prepared by the seller. And what seller would wish to pay for those necessary additional searches which he regards as optional but which the buyer regards as essential? The conflicting interests of buyer and seller mean that you can never speed up the system by trying to impose a HIP.



In my area of practice, with large numbers of properties valued at well below the national average, the HIP is more than just a nuisance. Having worked out the total bill for selling a modest terraced property, my client in the end decided to dispense with a selling agent to contain the cost.



Is it really too much to expect the government to swallow its pride and start to listen to the consumer?



Andrew Bell, Beresfords, Doncaster