MSE News: Home information packs 'more expensive' via estate agents

holtella

Just to share my recent experience with this. Having seen the Which article I contacted Fridays (you can't apply online, you have to arrange for a call-back - something that makes me immediately suspicious to be honest). Here's the deal... they can do the HIP for the price quoted but there's a pretty big catch, they can't commit to complete it sooner than about 6 weeks. So then (and the likely reason why they insist on doing this via a callback) they tell you about their conveyancing services and if you'll contract them for that then as a 'free bonus' you'll get a mini-HIP within a week (which is sufficient to start marketing your property). No conveyancing = no mini HIP.

So I tried the next cheapest on the list 'HIP Save' and was happy to find no conditional up-sell marketing. Mini HIP only took a few days. Full HIP was a few weeks but not a big problem as I only needed the Mini HIP to put my house on the market.

M.Holloway

holtella wrote: »

Just to share my recent experience with this. Having seen the Which article I contacted Fridays (you can't apply online, you have to arrange for a call-back - something that makes me immediately suspicious to be honest). Here's the deal... they can do the HIP for the price quoted but there's a pretty big catch, they can't commit to complete it sooner than about 6 weeks. So then (and the likely reason why they insist on doing this via a callback) they tell you about their conveyancing services and if you'll contract them for that then as a 'free bonus' you'll get a mini-HIP within a week (which is sufficient to start marketing your property). No conveyancing = no mini HIP.

So I tried the next cheapest on the list 'HIP Save' and was happy to find no conditional up-sell marketing. Mini HIP only took a few days. Full HIP was a few weeks but not a big problem as I only needed the Mini HIP to put my house on the market.

Fridays do HIP quotes online now, they're also the cheapest HIP according to which? magazine

I know they give you the HIP for free, but only if you use them to do your conveyancing as well..

principa

Our EA offered us a hip at £400.
Of course, I could go elsewhere and save about £150-200.
the EA knew I knew that.

But, I used the HIP during the negotiation with the EA (amongst other things) to reduce commission by a larger amount. Win/Win.

A bit of Baksheesh goes a long way...

strongeyecontact

Here's my experience with this so far:-

- Fridays HIPs - cheap but if you don't want them to do your conveyancing it will be 28 days before you can market your property. I said they should maybe have this on their website whilst receiving the quite hard sell on their conveyancing and was told it was on there and had been for weeks - well if it is, I can't find it! :cool:

They did say that if I didn't want their conveyancing I should ask our long-standing solicitors for a HIP quote, as much of the documentation is needed by them, which I thought was a good tip so am waiting for a callback now and will update this later!

- hipmanager.com was the cheapest I could find online at £168.73, even cheaper than Friday's unusable quote of £177, when I tried to call them to ask timeframes there was no answer, and not even an answerphone. I then tried sending an IM, which they said they would try to reply to within 1 working hour...nearly 3 hours later still nothing...

- so now also trying some people who have contacted me from the various websites I have been to, reallymoving.com provide instant quotes from local people and at £180 and £189 they have been quite competitive. Just waiting to talk to a real person now having again left an answerphone message...

So, it seems to be you can definitely get a lot cheaper than the EA HIPs but if you're busy and can't be bothered with the hassle you might want to pay the extra - or even use it as a haggling method as principa said, think I might call them now

MrsBMtoBe

I used Fridays Property Lawyers and did get my HIP within a week. Applied by phone on Thurs, got hard sell phone call on Friday, also telling me to contact my own solicitor to get it free if they were doing conveyancing. Stood my ground and insisted I wanted them to do HIP and I would sort out conveyancing myself at a later date. Informed it would be a month due to local search but I said no problem and willing to wait.

Had energy report carried out on following Monday, and interim HIP was sent Thursday which allowed my to begin marketing. Cost only £175 including VAT so I'm happy but they do give the impression they only want your business if you agree to their conveyancing.

scooter_chick

I used an on-line company, because like others, I wanted to be able to own my own HIP if the time came to sack the Estate Agent!

Actually I didn't even order it online, I rang up the cheapest online company I could find to check they'd send their energy chap round at a weekend, and sorted it out over the phone. It was ready for marketing purposes within a few days, they kept me informed about when it would be complete, and it was done in a very reasonable time. And that's for a leasehold property as well.

So I really don't see any benefit in going with the EA. If you can't afford the £200-odd quid for the HIP up front - are you really ready to be moving house?

strongeyecontact

Well I have to give Fridays their dues for the tip, even though their website is a bit misleading!

I spoke to my solicitor and even with a proper full local search, not one of those personal ones which are worse than useless, the cost from them is £130 all-in - bargain

We didn't need another EPC as they last 3 years and this house was only bought last year - another saving tip for anyone who has also bought and is selling within 3 years - but as we have carried out a full refurb we chose to get another one done so it will be much improved, just in case anyone cares how efficient their new house will be!! £30 from a local company, from the reallymoving.com website (which was also really competitive for the HIPs too, again with real local people rather than faceless online ones who take nearly nine hours to call you back when their website says one, take note hipmanager.com!), so all good :T

So that's it, £160 inc VAT for a full proper job, thank you very much!

And to the sceptics who will say our solicitors will just increase their conveyancing cost, no they won't, we are a property business who buy and sell regularly, and our solicitor has never yet been beaten by any legal peculiarity so we have managed to buy properties no-one else could, so he's worth his weight in gold!

I just love it when I hear it takes 4 - 8 weeks to complete on a sale or purchase, err no it doesn't. A decent solicitor can do it a couple of days now the searches are in the HIP, if they have the inclination that is, which a lot don't. Pick up the phone to sort out a query, heaven forbid, let's just leave it a fortnight then send a letter via the mail... Apologies, I have gone off on a slight tangent but just wanted to pre-empt any nay-sayers

anneofthenorth

Most people simply don't realise that they can get a HIP from another source - they put too much faith in their Estate Agent who they see as 'the experts' But here are a few myths about Estate Agents:
"we are the experts" well, they do have a lot of experience at selling houses, but the only people in the whole process with a professional qualification are the solicitors, the surveyors (if you have one) and the energy assessors.
"we do the HIPs in house". No you don't - you have to be independent. HIPs can't be done by anyone who might benefit from the sale of the house. They get a Pack Provider to do it.
"we can do it more quickly than other firms". Unlikely - all HIP providers have the same limitations, the main ones being how soon you can get an energy assessment done, and how long your local authority takes to do searches. And most can do an interim HIP in a couple of days, allowing you to market the property asap
"if you do it through us, we can defer payment till you sell the house" True, but so can many other HIP providers.
"the HIP belongs to the Estate Agent until you pay the deferred payment" this sounds like a ploy to stop you going with another Agent. You can go with any agent you want or several at once - the HIP is yours.

A lot of DEAs (including me) now provide the HIPs as well as just the EPC - by working with online companies that do 'everything except the energy bit'.
There are loads of individuals and companies that can provide HIPs. It just depends what you want - ask a few questions and compare prices. Or you could do the HIP yourself, then you only have to pay for the EPC.
Shop around!

AMO

Anyone got any recommendations for where to go for HIPS? We're in Leicester.

I hear a lot about getting them cheap online, but also that they're difficult to get through to on the more competitive ones or that there will be huge delays or that they are not FULL HIPs.

Thanks.

strongeyecontact

Hi AMO, I would first try your solicitor, if you have one you wish to use already, this was definitely the best choice for us. If not, or if they are trying to fleece you too, I found reallymoving.com quite good as local people put their quotes to you, you can also haggle a bit with them ;o)

Best of luck!