HIPs - couple of questions

sarah_elton

Going on the market soon and have a couple of questions re HIPs:

1) There's been talk on here of some online outfits using searches that aren't actually any good. Have I seen the term personal searches? I can't remember, and I would like to know the correct term to say to providers "Do you do XXX search, and not XXX search?"

2) Am I correct in thinking that HIPs don't expire so long as you continually market the property, but that if you take it off the market and go back on they only last six months? I have a flat so it could take absolutely ages to sell, and I don't want to be paying for a HIP every six months when they're such a waste of space anyway. :mad:

Richard_Webster

The search mustn't be a basic personal search - i.e. one carried out by the seller himself by gouing to the Council offices and collecting the information himself - that would have no insurance backing.

Most HIP providers use a personal local search arranged by a large specialist company that is insurance backed. These are acceptable to the vast majority of mortgage lenders (HSBC/First Direct is the main exception). This means that a standard price for a HIP can be quoted. If the search is done through the local authority then the price of that part of the HIP will vary wildly - Portsmouth Council charges £50 and some of the London Councils charge in the mid/high £200s.

My own local Council asked me why I wasn't using them and my main reason was that there was no national uniformity of price. People need to know what a HIP will cost - there will varaitions for freehold/leasehold and may be a bit more for unregistered titles - but wide variations from district to district won't be understood by the average seller who just wants to market his property and isn't really interested in the detail.

There has been a lot of comment on this forum about buyer's solicitors not accepting insurance backed personal searches. I have yet to come across a case where I am acting for a seller and there is such a search in a HIP and the buyer has made a fuss about it. If the search in the HIP gets out of date then the most the seller does is offer to pay £20-£30 for a search validation insurance policy which pays out if it is subsequently discovered that an entry has been made that would have been shown on a later search carried out after the one provided but before completion of the purchase AND the buyer/mortgage lender has suffered loss by reason of the entry.

sarah_elton

Thanks as usual for the great info Richard!

bo_drinker

Do you need a Hips report if you deal with the seller and don't use an E A. We are waiting for a property to come on and trying to get in before the owners approach an E A . We will be cash buyers Thanks.

david29dpo

As long as there as been no marketing, the property does not need a pack, only an EPC