Andrew Bell is wrong ('it is hard to see how the HIP can ever be improved') and Rick Barrow is correct ('some people need to wake up and smell the coffee' (See [2008] Gazette, 20 March, 13).


Home Information Packs (HIPs) provide solicitors with new ways to market their services and opportunities to improve the way we buy and sell properties. I have been saying the same thing for the last four years - 'the seller's solicitor should add information and documentation to the HIP while the property is being marketed'.



I have also been trying to offer some assistance to property lawyers for the last four years and based the formation of the Home Information Pack Action Group around that principle.



The expression 'you can take a horse to water but can't make it drink' keeps coming to mind in, sadly, far too many cases. I fear a natural cull of high street firms is beginning to start. However, it may not be too late for those firms who really want to survive and prosper.



Rob Hailstone, chief executive, Home Information Pack Action Group, London