Home information pack: firms can brand their own product

Legal software supplier Visualfiles and title insurance provider First Title are spending £1.25 million on developing a home information pack (HIP) platform that they plan to unveil in the third quarter of 2005.


HIPs will be introduced on a voluntary basis from June next year, and become mandatory from January 2007 for all residential properties offered for sale with vacant possession.


The Visualfiles/First Title platform will be based on Visualfiles' Visualpanel engine, which has been specifically designed to manage large volume, collaborative outsourced business processes.


Mark Armstrong, the company's business development director, said: 'The compilation of HIPs will require the interaction of estate agents, surveyors, lawyers, search providers and the government. This interaction, together with the initial instruction and the subsequent HIP delivery, will require a robust yet flexible, scaleable technology infrastructure.'


He added: 'We have got 350 private practice law firms that use our software, and of those 200 or so do conveyancing. If we do not put something in place for them we might be in a position where our clients struggle to compete. We have to give them something going forward.'


The system will allow firms to select which aspects of the HIP they will supply themselves and which they will outsource. Firms will also be able to brand their own product.


Ian Turner, First Title's development director, said: 'Our aim is clear - we want to supply our clients with accurate packs at the fastest possible speed.'


The Law Society has previously said that it is in the interests of consumers that solicitors should be the primary providers of HIPs (see [2005] Gazette, 20 January, 32).