Home Information Packs - are you for them or against them?

Jorgan_2

FTB, this is what I said in original post.

(80% of homebuyers do not have a survey when buying, the majority of people buying with a mortgage have a mortgage valuation, this is not a survey. Under HIPs 100% of sellers will have to have a survey carried out on their property. Those buyers that already pay for a home buyers or structural survey will probably still have their own survey carried out on their purchase. If they are selling as well, it will be an additional cost that they haven’t had before.)

So those buyers who currently go for an additional survey over & above a mortgage valuation are still likely to have their own survey. I have also said 'that if a buyer markets their property to purchase another one', so I am not assuming that all buyers are sellers, you appear to have assumed that I have.

Many people I speak to in the course of my work are uncertain as to whether they would accept the Home Condition Report provided within the HIP and have asked about how easy it is to obtain there own survey.


Likewise I have never assumed that a HIP will expire during the sales process. When does a HIP expire by the way? Sorry just reread your post.

The credit agreement would be between the HIP provider & the seller, not the EA. Likewise, many HIP providers are looking to charge for the HIP when a buyer requests it. It is in the current legislation that a reasonable charge can be made for the HIP.

Due to the nature of HIP, EA's won't be photocopying the HIP when a buyer requests it. Things like shaded areas on plans, need to be accuratley reproduced, photocopying it in the back room won't be an option. All the HIP providers I have spoken to are planning on producing the harcopy versions in a binded format, similar to a magazine, no staple or hole punches.

zag2me

I still think its a good idea, especially as it helps first time buyers.

Its too easy to criticise the government for everything they do, people should make up their minds once its been introduced.

Jorgan_2

BobProperty wrote:

But it doesn't, it's one of two properties. In the example I gave of the flats it would be one of four. Is that OK? Is "mid terraced" in a row of 5 OK? Just something else that hasn't been thought through by the look of it.

This is how it s been explained to me, Bob, you can not identify a property that is comoing on the market. If you only have two end of terraces, it can only be one of those. Mid terrace may be ok if there are a number of mid terrace houses in a street, how many there need to be I don't know.

Theres a lot that doesn't appear to have been thought out. Yvette Cooper will be making a statement to the House, on Wednesday, I think. Apparently a critical point on the future of HIPs has been reached, whatever that is.

Jorgan_2

zag2me wrote:

I still think its a good idea, especially as it helps first time buyers.

Its too easy to criticise the government for everything they do, people should make up their minds once its been introduced.

I'm not against a shake up in the way property is bought & sold, but the their needs to be real improvements made. Having information up front is a good thing, people can make informed decsions on the information received.

HIPs in my opinion has too many flaws, either part can still walk away leaving others out of pocket and it may not be any quicker than the current system.

BobProperty

zag2me wrote:

I still think its a good idea, especially as it helps first time buyers.

Its too easy to criticise the government for everything they do, people should make up their minds once its been introduced.

Like tax increases?:rolleyes:

BobProperty

Jorgan wrote:

....Theres a lot that doesn't appear to have been thought out. Yvette Cooper will be making a statement to the House, on Wednesday, I think. Apparently a critical point on the future of HIPs has been reached, whatever that is.

highlighted bit - I'm getting used to that with this goverment's legislation.
Oooh lucky us, another Blair Babe spouting the party line. Had enough of Dim Prawn with IR35 thanks.
Maybe they pull them and blame twojagsshags.

Jorgan_2

BobProperty wrote:

highlighted bit - I'm getting used to that with this goverment's legislation.
Oooh lucky us, another Blair Babe spouting the party line. Had enough of Dim Prawn with IR35 thanks.
Maybe they pull them and blame twojagsshags.

No if they pull them they'll blame Estate Agents, Surveyors, Mortgage Lenders & Solicitors for not willing to accept change & making HIPs unworkable. It definetley won't be the Governments fault.

WestonDave

Being as I'm in the middle of a sale and purchase maybe this is a reasonable place to make a first posting with some chance of knowing what I'm on about!

Its tempting to feel that HIPS might have removed some of the frustrations in our process but in reality they would acheive little that won't already be acheived when all property is registered in a few years time.

We've been able to put our property up for sale at a reasonable price, luckily find a buyer within a week of deciding to market it (no delay for HIP prep), get an offer accepted on the property we wanted (had been hanging around for ten weeks before dropping the price to something we could afford hence the quick pounce), get our mortgage offer agreed (efficient lender), get a home buyer survey done and be ready to exchange within a month of agreeing the deal. The only fly in the ointment was that we could have been ready earlier if the vendor had got their papers on an unregistered title ready (surprising given they were definitely going to sell and it had been on the market so long), and we still haven't exchanged because the property they are buying is in the same boat - no papers because they put it on the market without getting probate. Give it a few years when compulsory registration comes in and most of that will have been sorted because there won't be pages of old deeds to suss out - it'll be simply a case of quoting the title number enabling the buyers solicitors to get documents direct from the Land Registry.

Little of the problem would have been resolved by having a HIP, our survey was done and reported within three weeks of the deal and it was done by a survey who was contracted and paid by me not someone in the pay and favour of the seller. The searches take a couple of days now so most of the supposed benefit of the HIP in being ready is lost.

HIP's do nothing to speed mortgage offers through overworked lenders, nothing to make solicitors who are piling it high, doing it cheap and drowing in workload get a move on, and are likely in my view (as apparently happened in Aus when they introduced it) to kill the market stone dead for a couple of years while they get enough inspectors, and while they iron out the wrinkles to bodge into something vaguely workable. It won't help first time buyers unless they want to buy a new build as that will be near enough all that is on the market - which in a place like Bath where I live means no houses at all to buy as you can't build here!

Frankly the most telling indictment of this scheme is that a politically correct energy efficiency rating is included and a potentially life saving electrical test is left out.

What we have just done is take a speculative leap at moving and have it pull off because of the lack of buearacracy - HIPS will definitely prevent spontaneous moves because of the lag needed to prepare the docs - that lack of flexibility will have an adverse effect on the market if nothing else.

BobProperty

On the energy thing, has any EA ever known any buyer pull out of a deal beacuse the property wasn't energy efficient enough?

Jorgan_2

I haven't known anybody pull out due to a property not being energy efficient enough. If the energy rating within the HIP advised a buyer that this property was C rated & would cost £800 more per annum to run than a A rated property, it might have a bearing on a purchasers decision. But then the type of person that will live in a four hundred year old cottage maybe different to the buyer of a modern Barrett property, so the energy rating result may not be that important in the end.