Hips on a 5 year old home?

k3vin11

Spent a little while trying to find the answer to this question, haven't found it yet!

We are thinking of moving, our house is on a new development, it's now 5 years old, do we need to have a HIP? We spoke to a sales lady on another new develop a week or so ago, she said she didn't think we needed one because our house was covered by the NHBC 10 year guarantee thingy.

Can anybody point me to a website which confirms this? I've been on direct.gov.uk and it says....

"New builds
You need to provide a HIP for newly built properties. For details of what needs to be provided for a newly built property, follow the link below"

But the links below are a bit confusing and I can't find the details.....

Hippychick

You will need a Hip regardless of how old your property is.

G_M

See here for rules on HIPs

k3vin11

G_M wrote: »

See here for rules on HIPs

I did, as a former website design, my opinion of that section of the direct.gov website is very low! Anyway, that's a different issue.


Is £230 a good price, it's a local company and they say usual turn around is 5 working days.

purplebuzz

k3vin11 wrote: »

Is £230 a good price, it's a local company and they say usual turn around is 5 working days.

Does this £230 inc VAT? If so it is a fairly good price. We have just paid £188 all inc, which is practically at cost, on condition that we use the solictors for our conveyancing, which we were planning on doing anyway.

G_M

Do they do full Local authority search or personal search for this price?

k3vin11

Not 100% sure about VAT, includes the following....

"The HIP will provide local authority search information, drainage and water search details and official copies of the title register, title plan and if appropriate a copy of the deed of lease. You may wish to include Home Contents and Home Use information within the HIP. These are forms which ask questions about the property that the buyer's mortgage lender and conveyancer will ask later - providing them from the outset really will help you get to 'exchange' much more quickly."

Richard_Webster

k3vin11 wrote: »

Not 100% sure about VAT, includes the following....

"The HIP will provide local authority search information, drainage and water search details and official copies of the title register, title plan and if appropriate a copy of the deed of lease. You may wish to include Home Contents and Home Use information within the HIP. These are forms which ask questions about the property that the buyer's mortgage lender and conveyancer will ask later - providing them from the outset really will help you get to 'exchange' much more quickly."

Not up to date as they do not mention the now compulsory Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ) form.

The HIP takes as long to complete as it takes to get back the searches and this can often be more than 5 days, and sometimes the private search companies take longer because they have difficulty in obtaining certain information form the Councils.

k3vin11

Ok, I'm learning quickly here.

One final question, to move we need to gain a certain price for our house, can I get estate agents in to value the property before going ahead and ordering a HIP?

If the estate agents don't think will we realistically get the price we want, I don't want to waste money on the HIP.

p00hsticks

Yes - you ask an estate agent to give you a valuation, but then decide not to go on to market it if the valuation isn't what you expected. My understanding is that only when you actually put it on the market do you need the HIP.

G_M

If you are definately going onto the market, you need a HIP and getting it can delay marketing so earlier you order one the better.

But if you're not sure about selling yet, save your money, get at LEAST 3 estate agent valuations (+ do your own research on similar local house prices) and worry about the HIP after you've decided whether to sell or not.