Estate agent refuses buyer proper access to HIP

anadin_2

googler wrote: »

Why is £25 unreasonable, and why do you think the EA should bear the cost and time of printing it out of their fee, when the legislation specifically makes provision for them to make a reasonable charge, and seperates it from their fee?

It takes time to print - 50/60 pages or so?
While it's printing, the office can't print anything else, unless they have more than one printer.
If they've had to buy a second printer so that they can print other stuff while churning out HIP packs, that's even more reason to charge £25.

Please read original post. I wanted an emailed copy, not a printed one, which the EA refused to do and which would have cost neither party anything.

googler

Yes, I can see that you wanted an e-mail copy, but you did ask them to print one, and the response to that prompted you to say;

"I also wouldn't have thought £25 is a reasonable fee for p/copying, given how many thousands the vendor will be paying the EA...?"

...which is what I was responding to.

Richard_Webster

Quote:
Originally Posted by googler
Why is £25 unreasonable, and why do you think the EA should bear the cost and time of printing it out of their fee, when the legislation specifically makes provision for them to make a reasonable charge, and seperates it from their fee?

It takes time to print - 50/60 pages or so?
While it's printing, the office can't print anything else, unless they have more than one printer.
If they've had to buy a second printer so that they can print other stuff while churning out HIP packs, that's even more reason to charge £25.

Please read original post. I wanted an emailed copy, not a printed one, which the EA refused to do and which would have cost neither party anything.

Quite. It isn't that unreasonable to charge that kind of amount for a printed copy (although I would have thought that say £10 was more reasonable0 - but equally it is unreasonable for the EA not to provide a free link or e-mailed copy.

Of course, in practice a lot of buyers don't look at them, but that doesn't mean that if they want to they shouldn't be able to do so.

If they do look at them, they need to be careful because some of the information is technical, and without knowledge and experience, it is easy to worry about things that those of us in the business take as routine, or not notice things that would shout at us as been highly suspicious - but then that's what you pay solicitors for.

Newbird

If the property is on rightmove there should be a link on its page to the HIP...if it is done.

Ezmondino

Newbird wrote: »

If the property is on rightmove there should be a link on its page to the HIP...if it is done.

Yeap, the HIP for my house is on rightmove.

alexlyne

I got a HIP on a property posted to me on a CD, cos the EA says it was too large to email. It was only 2.2MB, surely not a problem in this day!

It was free.

Wortle

Is this a small agent or a national name...perhaps head office could clarify company policy?

chickmug

Wortle wrote: »

Is this a small agent or a national name...perhaps head office could clarify company policy?

Furthermore name and shame them on here!

Evee2000

Taken from 'Guidance for Enforcement Officers' (ie Trading Standards):

The duty to provide a copy of the Home Information Pack on request:

2. Section 156 of the Act requires the responsible person to provide a copy of the home information pack to a potential buyer where he makes a request for one. No charge should be made for the copy itself, although a reasonable charge may be made to cover copying and postage costs. There is a similar provision in regulation 24 which gives sellers the right to have a copy of the pack in order to ensure its accuracy but this regulation makes no provision regarding charging for a copy.

3. The duty is to provide a copy of the pack, or any part of it, within the "permitted period". In most cases this period is 14 days from the date of the request. The seller may apply either of the conditions described in section 157 before providing a copy, however, and, where he does, the permitted period starts from when these conditions are complied with.

4. The copy to be provided is a copy of the home information pack, or of the requested document from the pack, as it stands at the time when it is provided. In other words, the copy must be a copy from the pack, not some other similar document and must be the latest version of the document. Copies should be provided in paper form, unless the potential buyer agrees to them being made available in electronic form.

5. There are three circumstances in which the responsible person may turn down a request for a copy of the home information pack without breaching any duty. These are as follows:

• Where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person making the request cannot afford the property. For example, the agent might know the financial circumstances of the person in question, or the seller may want to exclude people who cannot demonstrate that they have arranged an "in principle" mortgage. However, this should not be used as a device to require someone to make an offer before they can be provided with a copy of the HIP. This would undo the main purpose of HIPs – which are intended to inform a buyer’s decisions before an offer is made.

• Where the responsible person believes that the person making the request is not really interested in buying this particular property or one like it. An example of this might be a journalist posing as a buyer in order to see the home information pack relating to a celebrity's home. Another example might be a 21 request for a copy from someone who the estate agent knows to be a habitual time waster.

• Where it is believed that the potential buyer is not a person to whom the seller would wish to sell the property. There are human rights implications here and this right of refusal reflects the current position where someone can refuse to deal with a particular person if he wishes to, providing they are not committing an act of unlawful discrimination (e.g. racial, religious or sexual discrimination).

6. Subsection (5) provides that the exceptions described above do not apply and a person may not refuse to provide a copy of a pack in cases where the responsible person knows or suspects that the person making the request for a copy of the home information pack is an officer of an enforcement authority.

7. Section 157 permits a seller to decline to provide a copy of the home information pack if the potential buyer has failed to comply with one or both of the following conditions:

• The payment of a reasonable charge for making a copy of the pack and sending it.

• The acceptance of any specified terms relating to the use and onward disclosure of copies of home information pack documents (NB: an estate agent acting for a seller cannot impose these terms on a potential buyer unless they result from the seller’s instructions).

8. The seller will only avoid being in breach of the duty to provide copies of documents requested if the potential buyer is informed of the conditions before the end of the 14 day period following his request for a copy of the pack.

9. Where one or both conditions are applied the "permitted period" will be the period of 14 days following the day on which the potential buyer complies with it or them. In this respect, the potential buyer would comply by:

• Making the payment demanded, or
• Reaching an agreement on the use or disclosure of copies.

10. There are no restrictions on the conditions that can be imposed on a potential buyer concerning the onward disclosure of pack information.

chickmug

Richard_Webster wrote: »

They are only entitles to refuse to supply the HIP if they have grounds for saying OP is not a serious potnetial buyer.

My view, as an agent, would be just offer it to anyone because the refusal, saying you don't believe they are serious, is not worth the aggro.

After all there is no Top Secret information in them.