Law firms need to start thinking strategically about the introduction of home information packs (HIPs), the chairman of the Law Society's task force on the issue said last week.

Paul Marsh, a Law Society Council member, also told the Gazette that a potential over-supply of providers of HIPs could lead to upheaval in the early stages of the new system. The government announced last November that HIPs will become mandatory from 1 June 2007 (see [2005] Gazette, 24 November, 5).


Mr Marsh said: 'The profession is going to be subject to huge commercial pressures from all sorts of different people offering to sell them HIPs. The market is now up and running, with people who want to be major players.


'Firms should not panic. However, they should think carefully about their particular conveyancing business and how it fits into the overall picture. One size does not fit all, and people have to think strategically.'


He added that the largely static level of residential property sales meant that the market 'could not possibly sustain all those people offering to provide HIPs'. The Law Society, which is producing its own HIP, will be one of the handful of major players to emerge from the resultant shakedown, he said.


Mr Marsh was speaking after Chancery Lane delivered its submission on the draft HIPs regulations to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the government department introducing HIPs.


He said the main criticisms related to the proposed contents form and the property-use form that will form part of the pack, as well as the list of properties that will be exempted from the requirement to produce a HIP.


There is also a significant issue around the delays in bringing a property to market that will be caused as sellers struggle to get all the information needed to complete their pack. This is expected to cause particular difficulty when the property in question is part of a block of flats, and sellers need to obtain details from, for example, a managing agent.