MSE News: Home Information Packs scrapped

chodges84

About time. We've looked at about 50 houses over the last year and we've never seen one HIP pack.

One EA prints the EPC on the back of the particulars, but don't draw attention to them. The others (about 7 different companies) have never even mentioned them. All of them bring their particulars to a viewing, but never a HIP.

If house prices fall back from their current over inflated price because of this then great.

Housesitter - I agree that EA's will push house prices, but they also need to make a sale to make a comission. A sale at 30% less than the previous highest price on the street is better than no sale at all. One EA office I know was not taking on properties if the vendor wanted to market higher than the EA's valuation. They've just taken on another member of staff, so must be busy.

Butterfly_Brain

:T That's One Brownie point to the coallition

I might consider selling now

Evee2000

Eenymeeny wrote: »

I'm hoping to recover some of it. Apparently the land search costs about £150...

Yep, add to that the cost of the EPC and bingo - your getting LESS information for about the same total cost as the whole HIP!

Well done.

Wee_Willy_Harris

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

:T That's One Brownie point to the coallition

I might consider selling now

Yup, you and everyone else.... just when buyers are being put off by the cost of surveys etc or, those that do still go ahead, having to take that money from what would have been the deposit. You might find HIPS were by far your cheaper option in the long run! You might get offered £5000 less, but at least you've saved £300 huh? Winner!

shane42

Eenymeeny wrote: »

I'm hoping to recover some of it. Apparently the land search costs about £150...

i was quoted £50??

hunnie

Hi,
My son regularly requested a HIP on each property in which he was interested.
Each one was always emailed to him.
They did have some useful information. They stated the build type. This may still be included in the Energy Certs as I think it was in that section. This was useful as one property was timber frame and he wouldn't have known this otherwise.
Also suspended floors were pointed out.
The main thing wrong with the HIP was the price. Another expense at a time of high fees (estate agent, solicitor) and one that had to be met up front. But their main advantage was to give buyers a certain amount of info before going for a survey.
Regards
hunnie

housesitter

HIP's included:
The title deeds.
I suppose you've never read any ?
A set I read enabled me to get more details on a covenent on the property before making an offer as the vendor didn't seem to know anything about it.

The name of the person who currently owns the house and with whom the mortgage is.
Handy when the EA insists that you deal through them and you want to speak to the vendor because you think the EA is playing around and not telling the truth (subsequently having talked to the vendor seems they were doing this to both sides at the risk of !!!!!!ing up the sale for some bizarre reason!).

It's interesting to see the approx boundaries of the house and those around and where abouts the water mains run if you were thinking of putting an extension up for example.

mmillie
1) utterly agree and TBH I think it's a waste of time and quite a lot of it guesswork.
2) some of the searches are useful such as those for the water and sewage. I'm sure others were used too for my paperwork.
3) It does help tell you that you should be going as far as getting a survey because everything else up to that point checks out.

SmlSave

I'm hoping to recover some of it. Apparently the land search costs about £150...

The Local Land Search does cost around and up from £150 - the council set the price, I've never heard of one under £80 shane, where do you live?

IMHO the only useful thing in the HIP was the Local Land Search as you need this to buy a property IMO it did speed up the process of buying

anneofthenorth

The searches will still need to be commissioned by each serious buyer (possible duplication of effort?) so this bit of the cost will simply be transfered from seller to buyer.
The EPC is still needed at the start and will probably cost anything from £40 upwards. Previously, the EPC was buried as just one part of the HIP - a lot of people just thought it was an unnecessary evil they had to pay for. Most of the money for the HIP went to Estate Agents and Pack Providers, and relatively little to the energy assessors (around £30 in many cases) and legal teams (who do the searches). The red tape - the admin and commissions - is gone, which is good.
As far as the EPC is concerned, I hope people will now deal directly with energy assessors - who are specialists in this field - and I hope they will actually read the EPCs and take heed of the recommendations. If you are buying a house, read the EPC. It will tell you how much your fuel costs are likely to be in the new house and how to reduce them.

happylass5

I call on the governement to refund the hundreds of pounds paid for HIPs by those who have not yet sold their properties. These HIPs are now not worth the paper they are written on. What a waste of money!!!!