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david29dpo

Good point, but at the moment the EPC software is a little flawed. This will not affect most properties but there is a war going on as we speak with a house for sale near me where the EPC was incapable of giving the rating it deserved, see last weeks Birmingham post for details. Plus we all know the real reason behind the EPC!!!!!!!!

paulrn_2

Its may be sad to say but the energy efficency part of the HIP seems to be a complete waste of time, having just finished house hunting I could not have cared less about it. If we are honest apart from some more "green" people, the rest of us couldn't care less if there is some insulation or a useless energy efficent light bulb (which interestingly enough contains mercury to poison rubbish dumps). We build a list of things we want our new home to contain, and then buy the one we fall in love with, faults and all.
My Mortage company refused to accept the searchs and we had to do them again, all in all HIPS are a complete waste of time, and more importantly money.

david29dpo

Did you mortgage company refuse the searches because they where personal searches or out of date?

paulrn_2

Because they wanted our solicitor to do them on our behalf.

Richard_Webster

EPCs can only give very broad indications and I understand that sometimes the categories that the inspectors have to use can produce silly results.

We had one done for a family property recently (and from his description of himself I suspect chriserenity did it!) and for main heating it says "Boiler and Radiators, Oil. Energy Efficiency: Average." My wife told the inspector (and we have made no secret of the fact to potential buyers), that the system does not work at all and therefore should be: "Very Poor" . However, it seems that the rules have to treat the system as if it does work!

This is a criticism not of the inspector but of the system and the way the government have set it up.

Doozergirl

A full survey would far better point out what needs doing. I'm not against the EPC but an EPC can only relate home condition to erm, energy saving. It makes me so angry! It does nothing towards simplifying the home buying process which what a HIP was supposed to do.

It stands like a white elephant without the full Home Condition report. Useful in part but the most irrelevant part of the entire house buying process. Fair enough if you're presented with two houses and genuinely can't decide between the two, perhaps the final decision could rest on it. But I would rather see a survey with the EPC as part of it, not a bizarre replacement. House sales collapse because of bad surveys, not lack of energy efficiency. I'd rather know that the boiler was !!!!!! than have it being given an average ebergy rating!

I am also absolutely irate that a mortgage lender says that they want the solicitor to do the searches on the buyer's behalf. What on God's earth are we spending money on exactly? I'm buying a house now and of course it doesn't have a HIP so I'm paying out for all the searches AND I'm selling ahouse where I've forked out for official searches that are pretty much useless now and may have even been in the first place if mortgage companies don't like them. It's not even the solicitor doing them, for pity's sake, it's the same poor bloke down at the council office :wall:

Rant over. I'm going to make some Xmas decorations.

WestonDave

DG - that's actually the point - its not. Official local authority searches are done by council employees who often have a track record in the area, know how the files are kept etc. A lot of the HIP searches are done by independant agents who walk into the council offices and do the "search" themselves. Councils have to let them have the files but they don't have to help them. Result - I know of one case where an agricultural worker restriction was omitted (basically the property could only be occupied by a farm worker which rendered it worthless to 95% of the population!). Fortunately the solicitor concerned knew the area and suspected there might be a restriction and challenged it. If you were lending the bulk of the property price, you'd want some comeback against whoever did the search that you rely on, and the only way they can do that is get their own solicitor (they generally appoint your solicitor to act for them in the same transaction to register the mortgage etc) to do a search. If it falls over they can claim against the solicitor, they couldn't against the vendor, not the search agent as they didn't have a contractual relationship with them. To be fair the Council of Mortgage Lenders always said they would not accept HIP searches, which with the removal of the Home Condition Report (which CML rejected on the same basis - surveys at the moment are joint instructions so again the lender is protected) rendered the HIPS useless, but the government insisted on proceeding. Word around here amongst the agents is that no-one has ever asked to look at the HIP on any property they have marketed!

chriserenity

Well TBH the EPC wasn't intended by the EU to be part of the selling process, that decision is on our government's shoulders. Alot of other European countries are doing a broadsweeping push to get all built structures surveyed in one go and everything inbetween - we're just doing it with HIPs.

I'd like to point out that if you feel that strongly about the HCR you could still get one done voluntarily. There is no shortage of Home Inspectors that would be happy to tend to your needs I'm sure!

Why wouldn't you want to know how much the place is going to cost you to run and how much you would save if you did x y or z?

I'm not an agent as I said elsewhere I'm trying to 'do' HIPs in such a way that helps the current setup rather than doing it blindly - the searches for example: as I said elsewhere there are HIP products out there that circumvent this 'old search' problem as you can get a free renewal at six months.

As to the searches not being accepted simply because the seller commissioned them - I'm not even going to touch that one. I'm leaving it to the solicitors et al to sort out.

We're in a state of transition at the moment and change is never easy especially with the weight of years and years of tradition on the housing market's shoulders.

Twill be alright - where's your optimisim?

dolce_vita

david29dpo wrote: »

............. Plus we all know the real reason behind the EPC!!!!!!!!

Yes.

It's another example of the increased surveillance we are under in this country.

Another opportunity for the government to gain infornation about us and our houses.

Information which will shortly be used as a way of raisng extra revenue by linking energy efficiency with council tax.

david29dpo

Got it in one!! Anyway, I only do hips packs with official searches so a buyers solicitor and lender will accept them. I highly recommend sellers to check this before they order their hip. Most agents who are using the mass hip pack providers dont even know the difference!!! I have had a right old game getting agents who i deal with to understand the the importance of official searches, ie, quicker completion with a happy buyer.