home information packs June 1st.

jawa1

Home Information Packs will be compulsory from 1 June 2007.

It will include "Standard searches (i.e. local authority enquiries and a drainage and water search)"

Does anyone have any idea if the mining report will be needed in this pack?

What are your views on putting you house on the market a month before they become mandatory?

If you are a buyer I guess you are going to wait until June the 1st so you get all the info up front?

pawpurrs

Will a survey be required?

jawa1

it is optional

MascaraMinx

Can someone explain how these packs work or post a link? Thanks

jawa1

http://www.homeinformationpacks.gov.uk/hip_content.aspx

BobProperty

5 minute argument or the full half hour?

TJ27

IMHO they are a good idea but there are arguments on both sides and I don't intend to go into it, cos I'll be here all night! They were going to be mandatory but the government then decided that they would be optional, apart from the thermal efficiency bit.

You know you get ratings on white goods which show how energy efficient they are? Well as a seller you'll have to have a similar thing done to your house.

BobProperty

prudryden wrote:

British Gas sent me a survey on the thermal effiency of my house. Was I ever surprised!!! I thought it would be zero, yet it came out fairly well. I even have original sash windows which vibrate when a blackbird zooms past. No cavities in the walls, so cavily wall insulation is a no go.
My question is: Why have a mandatory survey which you have to pay for when, as I do, that you already know it's not very efficient anyway. Why can't I just say its probably very low and so be it. It's a hundred years old. What would you expect?

I thought they'd stopped flying them No wonder your windows vibrate. http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/sr-71/

Seriously, the EU told us to do it a few years back, so they were included in HIPs which were then spun as an improvement to the house buying process. As I said previously on here, they will be as much use as the official goverment fuel consumption figures are to someone deciding between a 7 series BMW and an S class Merc.

filo_2

i was reading a forum for prospective home inspectors the other day. they are all devastated because they have been training for a home inspector qualification expecting to get virtually unlimited guaranteed work for home information packs and now the government has done a complete u-turn, the surveys are no longer going to be compulsory. some of them had given up jobs and spent up to 10k on training.

BobProperty

prudryden wrote:

roflmao - I have heard that the old Northolt Air Base in Middlesex has suddenly become very secretive. Do you think they are bringing them back?

Didn't they leak like sieves when stood still? You'd be able to smell it easily enough if they are back, assuming one can smell JP-7 :eek: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird

prudryden wrote:

Out of curiosity, which is better? The Beemer or the Merc.

Merc, but I've never driven a beemer or an S class.

jawa1

TJ27 wrote:

IMHO they are a good idea but there are arguments on both sides and I don't intend to go into it, cos I'll be here all night! They were going to be mandatory but the government then decided that they would be optional, apart from the thermal efficiency bit.

You know you get ratings on white goods which show how energy efficient they are? Well as a seller you'll have to have a similar thing done to your house.

Just to clarify for others... the Packs are still mandatory aren’t they? what is optional is the surveys(home condition report). Will still have to get the local search etc done.