Home Information Packs (HIPs) The Facts

Mrs_pbradley936

Well it says that my house gives 4.3 tonnes of whatever they measure and that the average house gives 6 tonnes.

tickeverybox.com

We have an impartial Guide to HIPS, including downloadable Home Information Packs, Home Condition Reports and Energy Performance Certificate at https://www.tickeverybox.com/hips

I hope you will find the information useful. Whatever your views, you need to be aware of what is happening, and what it means when you come to sell your home.

It is our opinion at tickeverybox that the general public aren't being given enough factual information about Home Information Packs - just what you pick up in the press.

In the property industry HIPS have been on the cards since 2000, so really there has been enough time to inform the public properly.

Becky

Can somebody please tell me how this will help the 1/3 failure rate with offers?

Unless somebody stands over both the estate agents and solicitors with a torture device, things will always be inefficient. Nobody speaks with each other.

The estate agent we used a couple of years ago let the 'buyer' fob them off with an invisible mortgage offer for weeks on end. Nothing would have helped this apart from a crystal ball on our part...

Will things like mining reports be required in this pack?

Tea_MAX

Surely a simplified tick sheet for the efficiency report i.e does the house have double glazing, loft insulation, cavity wall insulation,boiler type etc etc. is just as informative to the ordinary man in the street. When viewing a property most of this information is before your eyes.

I object to having to pay somebody to come along to my house to give his view on the energy efficiency. As previous posts have said if you really like the house and it's in a sought after area are you really going to risk losing it by trying to get the price down because of the energy rating.

BobProperty

Becky wrote: »

Can somebody please tell me how this will help the 1/3 failure rate with offers?
......

It doesn't. The Government move the goalposts when it had to drop the Home Condition Report so it's all about energy saving now.

Canucklehead - I said long ago the energy report will be about as useful as the government standard mpg figures for someone choosing between a 7 series BMW and an S Class Merc. One sandal wearing, tree hugging house buyer in 50,000 might be interested in it. If the price is acceptable the buyer will buy it. If the price isn't acceptable being an A rated, low energy consuming, eco-housing won't make any difference.

waster_2

Most of the information in these HIP's is easily available. However, a lot will be time limited and/or will need (be required) to be updated by any lender. A lender will not rely on old Land Registry Title information, 2 or 3 month old local searches, etc. On leasehold a lender will need specific and current information from the freeholder/landlord re service charges, proposed works, outstanding maintenance monies and the like.

The botton line is that the important information will become out of date within a month (at the most) of it being produced and it will all need to be updated/reproduced when the lenders legal people want to satify themselves that they are not being exposed to a legal lemon. When even the professional bodies, including the RICS & NAEA, that potentially stand to make the most from such a scheme stand against it then it must be suspect.

At the end of the day on mosr sales, and I would suggest all where a lender is involved, all of the information produced re title, searches, leases and the like will need to be obtained again so it is current. This is an ill conceived idea that originally was intended to speed up the selling and buying process. It will generally not achieve that objective and may indeed delay it. What it certainly will do, is add to the already costly process of buying and selling property in England.

Canucklehead

BobProperty wrote: »

It doesn't. The Government move the goalposts when it had to drop the Home Condition Report so it's all about energy saving now.

Canucklehead - I said long ago the energy report will be about as useful as the government standard mpg figures for someone choosing between a 7 series BMW and an S Class Merc. One sandal wearing, tree hugging house buyer in 50,000 might be interested in it. If the price is acceptable the buyer will buy it. If the price isn't acceptable being an A rated, low energy consuming, eco-housing won't make any difference.

Bobproperty: I agree to disagree on this one...in the long term the energy efficiency of a property will become more significant (has already become an important marketing tool in Canada) ...and how did you know I wear sandals? Big brother must be watching!:D

Canucklehead

mrmoneybags_2

I recently attended the ‘Hips are Happening’ Spring conference in Manchester, organised by the Association of Home Information Pack Providers. One thing that jumped out at me was that the Government seemed unaware that there are ways to sell property that don’t require estate agents, or auctioneers. Commission-free property sale websites clearly offer the typical punter the chance to save considerable sums of money. Now the responsibility for providing HIPs lies with those who ‘market’ property, which estate agents clearly do, but the way in which the commission-free sector operates appears not to have been considered. Commission-free operations will have to redefine themselves as being halfway between a database of property for sale and an advertising space onto which vendors can upload details of their property – if they offer to do more for the vendor, then responsibility for providing HIPs will fall on them, their prices will go up and any cost advantage of the DIY operation they facilitate will be lost.

Something else I overheard was that the energy rating of property found in the Energy Performance Certificate will very likely become a component in the calculation of Council Tax charges, which kind of makes sense if we are to reduce energy use.

prudryden

I'm starting to think that HIPS can be a real positive for sellers.

CFC

They're not a positive for anyone.

It's just another attempt by the gov't to stick its nose into everything humanly possible. All this data being collected on your house will be kept and shown around to everyone and their dog if they say they're going to buy your hosue. Of course, politicians and celebrities are exempt - THEY won't have to send out a HIPS pack to anyone except who they choose to, just in case a journalist gets hold of it. Yet another example of the attitude 'one rule for us special people, one rule for you plebs' - like with the National Children's Index, all kids will be on it except politico and celebrity children. Can't have paedophililacs getting hold of THEIR kids....

HIPS create another financial pressure. As there is a shortage of licencsed Home Energy Assessors (created because the govt has been so slow to put it all into motion from a practical level, what with changing the goal posts) the assessors will be able to charge you an arm and a leg. It's now going to be expensive to put your house on the market and you're going to be adding the cost of that to what you ask for your house.

It's difficult to know exactly what effect it will have on the housing market. One effect will be to discourage people from marketing their home unless they're really intending to sell it even if they have to drop the price, so the supply of houses may dry up. A lot of chains start with someone quite fancying moving, putting the house on speculatively, getting a good offer and then going from there. The supply of houses drying up may well push the market upwards, leading to more problems for buyers....I believe it's going to prompt a lot of problems on the housing market in the first year.

It will also create an absolute feeding frenzy for the people who've got the money to do the assessment course - they'll be quids in and the training providers are rubbing their hands with glee, charging around £3k upwards for the training course. Talk about money for old rope....