Advice Re: Hip Pack

diywannabe_3

I'd like to offer a few good old phrases to counteract the negativity of the chickmug below:
(1) "you can do anything if you put your mind to it" (corny but true)
(2) "if you're going to do something, do it well" (one from my dad)
(3) "solicitors are born solicitors" (made up for convenience)
(4) "life is for living, not enduring" (that's one of my own)
(5) "never put off until tomorrow what you can do today" (another corny but true one)
(6) "face your fear and it will disappear" (yeah, but spiders still freak me out)
(7) "tutto andra per il meglio" (from my Italian friend)
The way I see it, if you believe (1), stick by (5) and most definitely do (2), run headlong at (6) and completely DISREGARD (3) (afterall, solicitors go to school like everybody else, seriously, it's a fact!) then you'll feel the power of (4) and all in all, last but not least, (7) will happen for you.
Life is indeed a rich tapestry but to be honest if you read chickmug's comments and hand your faith over to everyone else, frankly you'll end up with some threadbare rug from poundland instead!
But if you do none of the above (1)-(6), you definitely won't have (7) in which case, chickmug has the best possible advice for you!
Cheers
Sam
PS, "tutto andra per il meglio" - roughly translated = "all will be well"

dekh

I did say there were far more knowledgeable people here than me!

What I can't fathom is:

Why is someone happy to pay an estate agent a percentage of the value of their sale price to advertise their home. More people should try the advert in the paper route or stick a sheet up at Morrisions

Why pay a broker to find a mortgage which may or may not be in your best interest. When you can probably find at least as good on the internet without paying.

Then quibble over a couple of hundred quid to a solicitor who has to act in your best interest. At one time EA's used to charge the same as solicitors. I'm so glad I'm not a solicitor! As I've said to the partners I know, "I don't know how you managed it but you've done it to yourselves."

diywannabe_3

Dekh, I agree totally.
It is strange, the things we choose to save money on and the things we don't. I guess it's to do with the fact that solicitor's fees rear their heads relatively early on in a transaction, whereas estate agent's fees tend to arise during the moment of dubilation and self-satisfaction!
Regarding estate agent avoidance, there are websites with whom you can advertise your property, thus capturing a larger audience than the local shop or paper. Just google it. Let's face it, there's a website for most things in life nowadays!
Sam

dekh

The scary thing would be if the deferred HIP, EA fees, broker fees all get tagged onto the mortgage, then you are paying double over the life of the mortgage even if you don't realise.

I was thinking of creating just such a website. There are manu Open Source packages that could be hacked quite quickly.

Charge a nominal fee of say £5 for 12 months just to make sure the poster is legit and traceable allow a dozen photo's, good chunk of text, unlimited changes.

The £5 should cover the cost of processing the credit card and the bandwidth charges for the host (I'd have to research that though).

But I'm not sure of what legislation would be involved ie. how to prove a HIP has been ordered. But then if the site has the sellers contact details and doesn't provide any EA services, whatever they are , then does any of that matter as it is simply advertising space?

Then I think, sod it, what's the point :rotfl:

chriserenity

dekh wrote: »

But I'm not sure of what legislation would be involved ie. how to prove a HIP has been ordered.

I can't speak for all HIP Providers RE the above but we issue our clients with a date stamped confirmation of order which can be emailed to the estate agent to allow the estate agent to then legally market the property. This also protects the agent from a random trading standards inspection.

This changes next month when 1st day marketing ends. From 1st June the Vendor/Estate Agent must have in place ...

The Index (takes 5 mins)
The Sales Statement (takes 5 mins)
The Land Registry information (1 day turnaround from LR online)
The EPC (1-3 day turnaround in 90% of cases)

... before marketing can begin

The rest of the documents are irrelevant to ordering and must only be provided within 28 days of the pack order date. The above is assuming the CLG don't do a U-turn on 1st day marketing at the last minute as some are predicting (I hope they don't).

For people compiling their own HIPs please be aware of the above - it applies just as much to you as it does to HIP Providers like me.

p.s. £500 is a crazy price to pay for a HIP unless it includes ALOT of extra content e.g. relevant searches/Home Condition Report (remember those?). Yes I think £100 is a fair price to pay an energy assessor for an EPC. The EPC should include the coloured EPC graphs because these must be included by law in sales particulars both online and hard copy.

jimc_2

dekh wrote: »

I was thinking of creating just such a website. There are manu Open Source packages that could be hacked quite quickly.

Charge a nominal fee of say £5 for 12 months just to make sure the poster is legit and traceable allow a dozen photo's, good chunk of text, unlimited changes.

The £5 should cover the cost of processing the credit card and the bandwidth charges for the host (I'd have to research that though).

But I'm not sure of what legislation would be involved ie. how to prove a HIP has been ordered. But then if the site has the sellers contact details and doesn't provide any EA services, whatever they are , then does any of that matter as it is simply advertising space?

Even though it is in my business interests to strongly encourage new private sale start-ups you'll need to do a lot more research than that. When I looked at the market a year ago I stopped counting at 260 private-sale sites. Although some reach hundreds of properties and a couple are in the low thousands, about 90% never get beyond 10-20 properties and get zero google attention. I'm reviewing the field again and about 30% seem to have vanished but been replaced by more than twice that!

More seriously, the OFT, pushed by estate agents, are retrospectively applying the 1979(!) estate agents act (which was passed to protect us FROM agents and seriously pre-dates the internet) to define 96% of these sites as carrying out 'agent duties' and therefore acting as agents and having to sign-up for the agents ombudsman redress scheme. This is a serious concern and you can read more about it at the (non-commercial) Association of Property Advertisers page on the fsbo.org (That's 'for sale by owner'.) website.

chriserenity

Further to this I'd also add that websites advertising themselves as 'introductory companies' i.g. private sale sites promoting themselves as HIP exempt are not in actual fact HIP exempt despite what they say. Almost all of these companies are advertising properties and so the properties require HIPs.

Trading standards position on this is similar to the inland revenue's on tax evasion. Ignorance of the law is no protection from it.

Jorgan_2

chriserenity wrote: »

Yes I think £100 is a fair price to pay an energy assessor for an EPC. The EPC should include the coloured EPC graphs because these must be included by law in sales particulars both online and hard copy.

Curious to find out how many agetns are actually including the EPC Graph to their details, be it online or hard copy. Of the fifteen or so agents in my immediate area, I am only aware of four putting the EPC online.

chriserenity

Jorgan wrote: »

Curious to find out how many agetns are actually including the EPC Graph to their details, be it online or hard copy. Of the fifteen or so agents in my immediate area, I am only aware of four putting the EPC online.

I would say your area was representative of my own. Some agents are being good but most are not including the EPC graphs and (even worse) some are only including them when they are flattering.

One agent who will remain nameless told me "my customer is the seller, not the buyer. My job is to sell houses. Why would I include information that doesn't present the property in a positive light?".

Primrose

It would be nice if you could manoeuvre a situation where somebody could approach you and ask you to sell them your property without it being actively marketed because in that situation you wouldn't need a HIP at all.

The following is an extract from the website: http://www.homeinformationpacks.gov.uk/consumer/59_Sellers_frequently_asked_questions.html

"I'm selling my house privately - do I need a Home Information Pack?
If you are marketing your property, even if it's just by putting a 'for sale' sign in the window, you need a Pack. Sales where no marketing takes place (e.g. to a member of the family) won't need a Pack." Also see http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts2004/20040034.htm (Part 5, Nos. 149.)