Property search company OneSearch Direct announced its intention to launch an electronic home information pack (HIP) this week - but solicitors said they are confident that they will be able to compete.

The company, which already offers electronic home surveys though Surveys Online, said it intends to have an electronic pack available for a dry run of HIPs in 2006.


Ronnie Park, managing director of OneSearch Direct, said: 'We believe our e-HIP will help make home information packs a reality and make transactions more cost and time efficient.'


Denis Cameron, chairman of the Law Society's conveyancing and land law committee, said most aspects of the packs will be available electronically to solicitors by the time they are introduced in 2007.


He said official copies of the registration document are already available electronically, while some local authorities already offer local searches on-line.


Mr Cameron added: 'Standard inquiry forms for fixtures and fittings will be delivered electronically, and I am confident that solicitors will be able to deliver packs on-line. But the problem for us is that we do not yet know how the arrangements will work in relation to home condition reports.'


Mr Cameron added: 'The government's suggestion that the reports must be delivered with no up-front cost could be a problem even for the major players. It is geared towards a quick sale in a buoyant property market, but it could be difficult to defray the cost where houses take a long time to sell.'


Meanwhile, Steven Foster, chief executive officer of property search company TM Property Service, said HIPs would be a great advance for fair trading. He said the packs were a 'long overdue step forward for common sense in the domestic property market'.


Compulsory HIPs will come into force in January 2007 after the Housing Bill received royal assent last month.