Hips, how current do searches need to be ?

pennine

I bought my plot back in 2006, built my house and now intend to move.
All the searches were done at that time by my solicitor so do I need to do them all again for the Hip? I am in the process of organising the EPC and downloaded the new questionaire, should I need to do any more ?
Thanks in advance

amandajp_2

I don't know if there is a timescale for searches for the HIP itself, but certainly once we accepted an offer on our house we had to pay for new searches on our house as the searches in the HIP were 14 months old. I have heard that searches need to be no older than a year, but I'm not sure if that is a legal requirement. Certainly I would think you would need searches to be re-done if they were last done in 2006.

Amanda

earthdancer

I read an article that said that searches are only valid for 3 months, so if searches in the HIP are older than that, the buyer must pay for new ones.

david29dpo

You will need new searches for you HIP. The searches are "valid" till the property is sold, unless taken off the market and put back on after 12 months from the start of marketing. Most buyers solicitors will want to update the searches in a HIP after 5/6 months, not 3. The buyer does not HAVE to pay for them. Most buyers are getting the seller to pay but no one HAS to legally.

pennine

Many thanks for the answers. It looks like there will be no point in doing the searches in that case until I get a buyer. So pretty much my Hip is complete once the EPC is done and a couple of other pointless bits of paper, index etc .

Richard_Webster

Many thanks for the answers. It looks like there will be no point in doing the searches in that case until I get a buyer. So pretty much my Hip is complete once the EPC is done and a couple of other pointless bits of paper, index etc

Unfortunately you cannot market the proeprty until you have a HIP ready. You don't have to have all the searches in place at the point of marketing but they must have been commissioned and you must be able to demonstrate that you have done that. Result is that by the time you have a buyer they may be out of date.

amandajp_2

pennine wrote: »

Many thanks for the answers. It looks like there will be no point in doing the searches in that case until I get a buyer. So pretty much my Hip is complete once the EPC is done and a couple of other pointless bits of paper, index etc .

I think legally you have to have the searches though so you will need to get the searches done, although they may need to be re-done once you sell if it takes longer than about 5-6 months. Someone with more knowledge of this however, may be able to confirm this.