first time selling house - advice please

pedro789

HiI had 3 agents round last week and decided to go with Halifax. Their fees are 1.8% but not prepared to go down despite my best efforts (any tips?)Anyway I now need to get HIP and will probably use one of those recommended on here. Sorry for my ignorance but if something shows up on the HIP (e.g. damp) do I need to get this rectified before I market the property? Also do I need to get a new HIP done after any work has been completed?Any advice for 'naive' first time seller appreciated.Thanks.

pie81

On the estate agent fees, you could suggest a tiered fee... they get 1.8% if they get the valuation that they have suggested, but less (say 1.2%?) if they get lower.

Damp and most other issues with the building will not show up on the HIP as it doesn't include a survey (unless you voluntarily pay extra to include one). It only includes an energy efficiency review, local authority searches, and a property info questionnaire that the seller fills out (eg when was the boiler last serviced, are there any rights of way, etc).

So no real need to get another HIP done after doing work to the property (unless the work would improve the property's energy efficiency or affect the answers to the questionnaire).

We used hips4u and paid £20 extra for their express service - came through in 4 days.

ognum

HIP is not a survey and as far as all the HIPs I have looked at do not show anything about the building structure. The HIP contains information from the land registry as well as the type of information from searches like drainage routes/likelyhood of flooding/plot size and boundries/property insulation'planning permissions
I have never seen a HIP that looks at damp, decorating or anything as useful as that.

pedro789

cheers both, thanks for the quick replys