With the government public propaganda campaign starting, it is now time for the Law Society to abandon its damage limitation exercise and come out publicly against home information packs (HIPs), and to make it clear that almost all informed and disinterested professional opinion is against them.

We know they are supported by powerful vested interests, namely large companies, corporate estate agents and factory conveyancing firms, who recognise commercial advantage. However, they will likely sound the death knell of small estate agents and the bulk of high street solicitors' practices.


Is it not tragic that advice and warnings from those who work within the industry have been ignored and that yet another basic freedom - to market and sell your property how and when you wish - is to be swept away with bureaucratic and expensive HIPs? They will have an artificial effect on the economically vital housing market.


Now that John Prescott has been shuffled off the scene, perhaps it is not too late to urge that wiser counsels should prevail. If they do not, new Labour will suffer dire electoral consequences when the sound- bites have gone and the reality of HIPs affects the housing market.


If the government wishes to provide real assistance to first-time buyers, it should increase the stamp duty land tax threshold to £200,000 or otherwise reduce the pernicious level of this stealth tax.


John Lawrance, Lawrance & Holder, Potters Bar, Herts