Advice Re: Hip Pack

A123JACK

I am due to instruct an Estate Agent to market my property. I am in the process of sorting my own HIP pack. I have seen an online company
conveyancingbrokers.co.uk

There price for a freehold property (located in Chesterfield) is £264 inc vat.

This is over £100 cheaper than the estate agent.

Has anybody used this company or can you provide a recommendation of any companies that provide a pack for a similar price.

Any help /advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

country_sport

Online HIPs seem to be going the same way as online conveyancing,i.e. cheap and cheerful and most likely full of mistakes.

diywannabe_3

Hi everyone,
With the right books and information one can do one's own conveyancing for house purchases. And it seems to me the HIP's are less complicated than conveyancing. So does anyone know of any books or websites that are out that would advise on the production of a HIP's? My husband has just had one done by an estate agent (who probably contracted it out to another company) and has paid £500!!! Surely this is an added expense on house sales and purchasing that could be cut?
Thanks for reading
Sam

country_sport

£500 is ridiculous. Depending on your local council, the pack costs about £230ish to produce.

jimc_2

Estate Agents don't do HIPs! They're not qualified or certified to do them. The official HIPs providers organisation is the Association of HIP Providers and there is a list of members here.

Estate Agents would love the public to believe they 'own' HIPs because it is then yet another revenue earner for them and they can construct 'tie-ins' like deferred payment or even the mythical 'free HIPs' to keep sellers locked-in despite poor performance. The same has been said of some solicitors giving a good price for a HIP but then linking this to expensive conveyancing.

Make sure you commission it from a qualified provider and there are many offering prices from about £200+VAT. You can even get one from Tesco but another thread advises not to get sucked into other services (eg financial) that might end up costing you more.

diywannabe_3

Hello again,
I appreciate that the £500 thing was perhaps a shocker and redirected attention onto 'how to find a cheaper but good HIP' thread (and I'd like to thank you for your suggestions, I'll keep them in mind), but my initial question remains:

Can I do my own HIP? Afterall, it is possible to do conveyancing yourself.

Cheers
Sam

country_sport

Yes, you can do your own hip. Is really quite easy.

dekh

diywannabe wrote: »

Hello again,
I appreciate that the £500 thing was perhaps a shocker and redirected attention onto 'how to find a cheaper but good HIP' thread (and I'd like to thank you for your suggestions, I'll keep them in mind), but my initial question remains:

Can I do my own HIP? Afterall, it is possible to do conveyancing yourself.

Cheers
Sam

I don't think you're allowed to do your own conveyancing, I don't think it is worth your while even trying.

I'm sure Richard Webster will put you right here but: HMLR will not accept instructions from anyone but a licenced conveyancer or solicitor to alter the charges/ownership on a deed relating to a purchase, sale, remortgage. I doubt if any lender will accept your interpretation of search results and so won't lend you the money, plus they will not pass the money to you to pass to another clients solicitors, and no solicitor for another party will communicate with you, how could they trust you? And you don't have the PI insurance to cover for any mistakes - this runs into 10's of thousands of pounds.

You can however do a lot of the HIP yourself, you can order and pay for the searches yourself, put the document together yourself what you can't do is the EPC this has to be done by a qualified bod. They will likely charge £100 for this. Chriserenity can give a more accurate idea of what's involved.

On line at £265 inc VAT after the fixed costs have been taken out, there is probably less than £50 profit before overheads. Hardly worth the bother of even trying to do it yourself. If there are mistakes then the HIP is not fit for purpose and should be redone at no extra charge (that's my IMHO anyway).

The things to watch for with HIPS is low initial costs which tie you in to EA or conveyancing services which are then hugely over priced an deferred payments which will be incredibly costly at the end of the day.

For your conveyancing, go for a locally recommended solicitor and get on line quotes to do comparisons.

diywannabe_3

Hi Dekh,
You can indeed do your own conveyancing, and there are countless websites and books that guide you through the process. The lenders are obviously more comfortable if you provide them with a solicitor, but it's like representing yourself in court, you don't need one. The conveyancing process is simply pushing paper around. As long as you are organised and follow the process, keep to deadlines and get the relevant experts in when needed, I'm told it's really not so difficult - I fully intend to do it myself with my next house sale. The solicitors simply charge extortionate amounts because they know most people wouldn't want to tackle the complex jargon they use.
Cheers
Sam

chickmug

diywannabe wrote: »

Hi Dekh,
You can indeed do your own conveyancing, and there are countless websites and books that guide you through the process. The lenders are obviously more comfortable if you provide them with a solicitor, but it's like representing yourself in court, you don't need one. The conveyancing process is simply pushing paper around. As long as you are organised and follow the process, keep to deadlines and get the relevant experts in when needed, I'm told it's really not so difficult - I fully intend to do it myself with my next house sale. The solicitors simply charge extortionate amounts because they know most people wouldn't want to tackle the complex jargon they use.
Cheers
Sam

DIY conveyancing!!!!! I know many agents & solicitors who would advise their clients to refue to sell to a party who intended doing it themselves. I know many examples where people tried and cocked up big time.

DIY HIP's!!! I know many solicitors who will not accept HIP's even from HIP's providers due the the poor quality information.

I am all for saving money but only know of one case several years ago where the seller did his own legal work and all OK.

Richard_Webster

You can do your own HIP if you want but unless you are paying some silly price charged by an estate agent you will only save £50-£100.

If you are buying you can do your own conveyancing if you want but you will still have to pay for the mortgage lender to have their own solicitor to check everything for them so you might save about £200 that way. All the other fees, searches, SDLT, Land Registry etc will be the same.

On a sale there is an ID issue. If a solcitor is acting for the seller the buyer's solcitor is entitled to assume that the seller's solicitor has done ID checks and is acting for the real owner of the property. If a solicitor sends money by CHAPs transfer on completion he will do so on the seller's solicitor's undertaking to forward the signed documents.

However if the seller acts in person then the buyer's solcitor has got to see the seller to check his signature and ID. If the buyer's solicitor has to travel some distance to see the seller and hand over a banker's draft in exchange for the signed documents he will charge his client significantly more and the buyer will not unnaturally want to pass this cost on to the seller. The alternative is that the seller comes to the buyer's solicitor's office which may not be very convenient if he is trying to move house at the same time!