Out of date HIP

clueless1

I am in the process of selling my property and I am currently replying to enquires raised by the buyers solicitor. They have informed me that the searches in my HIP are out of date and could I provide them with further searches.
I thought that the seller had to provide a HIP in order to sell a property but if the buyer is not happy with it, you can tell them to commission their own searches?
Who has to cover the costs? If it is the seller then can I just pay for new searches or do I have to pay for a full HIP again?

prowla

HIPs - they were a neat government scam!

confused31_2

i dont think a hip runs out as long as you keep the house on the market, its up to you can ask the buyers to pay for the searches or you can pay for it yourself, i suppose it depends how much you want to sell the house.

I dont think the searches are that expensive.

Doozergirl

The searches are out of date as soon as you've had them carried out.

You've done your bit legally. They're trying you on for size.

confused31_2

Doozergirl wrote: »

The searches are out of date as soon as you've had them carried out.

You've done your bit legally. They're trying you on for size.

If thats right i would tell the buyers to do it, at least it will show you they are serious buyers.

Darth_Marty

The searches are out of date 3 minths after they have initially been carried out. After that time should a sale be agreed they are carried out by the buyers solicitor and obviously that gets added to the buyers bill. Like anything of course they can ask if you will pay but its not the norm and id say no. Politely.

Doozergirl

Darth_Marty wrote: »

The searches are out of date 3 minths after they have initially been carried out. After that time should a sale be agreed they are carried out by the buyers solicitor and obviously that gets added to the buyers bill. Like anything of course they can ask if you will pay but its not the norm and id say no. Politely.

I agree apart from the three month bit - it's discretionary and in theory a planning application to build a motorway through your garden pond could be lodged the day after the searches are carried out. It's always best to have your own...

And for HIPs not to exist at all. It used to be that the buyers paid for one set of searches - now buyers are expecting vendors to pay for two identical sets!

amandajp_2

I think this is becoming more common as houses take longer to go under offer. It has taken us 14 months to get our offer so the buyers asked us to pay for new searches as they were out of date. Although not particularly happy about it we have paid up as for the sake of £90 we didn't think it worth getting into a wrangle with the buyers about it and potentially put our sale at risk. It just points up the idiocy of the HIP system in my opinion.

Amanda

david29dpo

Legally, you dont have to do anything. You dont need to update the HIP and you dont need a complete new HIP. However, if the HIP is 5/6 months old, most if not all buyers solicitors will want to get new council searches. The law society recommends this. The buyers can ask you to pay but you dont have to. As said above, only you can decide if your buyers will take the hump and pull out.

m_13

Flagged as an issue by the NAEA last August:

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) is demanding a review of Home Information Packs (Hips) because the slowdown in the housing market means that some of the packs are out of date before a property is sold.

The packs were intended to simplify and speed up the house selling process but the majority of estate agents opposed their introduction last year, in the current form.

The NAEA is now arguing that local searches should be withdrawn from Hips but that inclusion of the proposed Property Information Questionnaire would prove useful.

Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the NAEA, has warned that the need for government action is urgent.

He wants to see a simplified version of the pack, which would include the property questionnaire, an Energy Performance Certificate and the Land Registry title and plan.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is backing the call for change.

Its director of external affairs, Gillian Charlesworth, says that searches should be omitted from Hips so that buyers and their advisers can obtain them at the appropriate time during the transaction.

The PIQ is mandatory from 6th April 2009 along with HIPs being available from day one of marketing but the searches are still there.

Richard_Webster

It is really a matter of negotiation. The buyer can jump up and down in the estate agent's office saying how unreasonable the seller is etc, but most don't...

Acting for a buyer if the local search is more than 3 months old I ask the seller's solicitors to do a fresh search. (I don't see the point of renewing the drainage search because most of the time it is not really necessary anyway, and the likelihood of adverse changes is tiny, e.g. house being disconnected from mains drainage and cesspit installed in the garden!)

So far I haven't had a single seller's solicitor prepared to redo the search and none of my buyer clients have been that bothered about it that they threaten to pull out etc. A more practical approach is to obtain search validation insurance, whihc typically costs £20-£50 and which pays out if there is subsequent loss to the buyer because of an adverse entry that would have been shown on a search carried out after the actual search but before completion, provided that is within 12 months of the date of the search.

Some seller's solcitors will advise their clients to pay for this validation insurance, others won't. For most buyer clients the cost for this insurance is such that it is not worth wasting time arguing about who will pay for it, if the seller will not do so. the buyer is more concerned to move than save say £30!