unfinished HIP

chriserenity

BobProperty wrote: »

No that's my point. With council tax, if you knew the value of one house on the street then all the others of the same type in the street would be about the same value which was all that was needed for Council Tax assessment. (If you want to base a tax on energy efficiency the easy way is to tax the price of the energy, but no we have to have a complex assessment system.) You can't "energy assess" one house in the street and assume all the others are similarly energy efficient.

You can actually in a way. The assessment procedure for EPCs is such that you can directly compare any property with any other because it assumes 'standard occupancy' i.e. the purchaser will use the house in a set way and the procedure used by all energy assessors is the same for all ten thousand of us.

But to take your meaning literally if a property is sufficiently similar then a 'cloning' method can be used to assess large quantities in one go. Alot of cloning went on when the first batch of social housing was assessed.

chriserenity

takoo wrote: »

Hi

Be aware that if the extension was not taken into account at the last (first) "revaluation" for council tax. it may result in a revaluation for the property by the Valuation Office Agency. If so there may be a rebanding.

I would hope that the HIP could tell you what the council tax effect of the extension might be but I can't recall that it would/should include such a really important matter.

The local VOA may be able to give you an idea.

Good luck

Takoo

The Home Use Form in the HIP (optional document - good HIP providers include it) will tell you the current council tax band but because the property is rebanded after the VOA get the particulars delivered from the buyers solicitor it isn't possible to include the rebanding in the HIP as it is prepared outright to inform the conveyancer prior to the PDs (or their now modern electronic equivalent) being sent out to the VOA.

You're right, it would make sense for the HIP to have the info in, its just not possible.

Debt_Free_Chick

Richard_Webster wrote: »

Sorry, if you are talking about searches such as the local search and drainage search, this is complete rubbish. I've never heard of this happening.

The one that deals with planning permission ...... the one that solicitors do to warn buyers of any development "locally". I know this isn't a standard search and that the buyer usually has to pay extra, but it's the one that tells you if PP has recently been granted for a development that might overlook the property being bought or .... if there's approval for a motorway/high-speed train link within half a mile or so

If there was a very long delay e.g. 4-6 months, between the papers first being submitted and exchange, you might want to repeat a search before exchange, but never after exchange. Once you have exchanged contracts you are stuck with the property anyway so finding out about the newly proposed "motorway through the back garden" would be too late in any event.

Agree .... but there have been posts here criticising solicitors for not rubbing their crystal ball and telling the buyer this .... even though the buyer has no option but to complete, once exchange has taken place

Again, my solicitor asks me if she is to run the searches again, immediately before completion.

bluestu

BobProperty wrote: »

What utter bollards. It will take about 20 years before most houses have changed hands and therefore need an EPC. Also please tell me what this "legislation that we have signed up to" is, because if you are talking about EPCs there isn't anything in there about council tax. Where's our pet [strike]tiger charm salesperson[/strike] HIP expert tonight?

The legislation we have signed up to is the energy performance of buildings directive where we have agreed to energy assess all our dwelling and make improvements to the efficiency of stock, the HIP is the first vehicle to introduce EPC's, rental properties will require them from October, new builds after APril. All social housing providers will be making assessments of thier stock.

I am not talking about next year or whatever, just sometime in the future once the majority of stock has been assessed, it will be the natural progression. This has nothing to do with any current council tax legislation, nor is it written down in any current publised agenda, i am just drawing my own conclusions from some inside knowledge and watching what has happened with cars/flights etc.

In the first 4 months of HIP's being introduced over 250,000 EPC's were lodged, this is when they only included 3/4 beds. i would guess covering all dwellings now the figure would be well over 500,000. with the introduction of new builds and rental included that figure could easily double giving over 2 million EPC's a year. i dont know how many houses there are in england/wales but if it is 20 odd million in five years time possibly over half could have been assessed.

Every EPC is lodged on a central register so the gov will know exactly how many have been issued, what rating they have etc so will be able to make decisions based on the rating of the housing stock.

I guess they shot down in flames the first bloke who said the world was round!

BobProperty

bluestu wrote: »

The legislation we have signed up to is the energy performance of buildings directive where we have agreed to energy assess all our dwelling and make improvements to the efficiency of stock, the HIP is the first vehicle to introduce EPC's, rental properties will require them from October, new builds after APril. All social housing providers will be making assessments of thier stock.

I am not talking about next year or whatever, just sometime in the future once the majority of stock has been assessed, it will be the natural progression. This has nothing to do with any current council tax legislation, nor is it written down in any current publised agenda, i am just drawing my own conclusions from some inside knowledge and watching what has happened with cars/flights etc. from under my tin-foil hat while the black helicopters circle overhead.

In the first 4 months of HIP's being introduced over 250,000 EPC's were lodged, this is when they only included 3/4 beds. i would guess covering all dwellings now the figure would be well over 500,000. with the introduction of new builds and rental included that figure could easily double giving over 2 million EPC's a year. i dont know how many houses there are in england/wales but if it is 20 odd million in five years time possibly over half could have been assessed.

Every EPC is lodged on a central register so the gov will know exactly how many have been issued, what rating they have etc so will be able to make decisions based on the rating of the housing stock.

I guess they shot down in flames the first bloke who said the world was round!

FixedItForYou

Richard_Webster

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Webster
Sorry, if you are talking about searches such as the local search and drainage search, this is complete rubbish. I've never heard of this happening.

The one that deals with planning permission ...... the one that solicitors do to warn buyers of any development "locally". I know this isn't a standard search and that the buyer usually has to pay extra, but it's the one that tells you if PP has recently been granted for a development that might overlook the property being bought or .... if there's approval for a motorway/high-speed train link within half a mile or so

These Plan searches/Know Your Neighbour Searches are useful but they are not necessarily completely up to date and although they will show some things that are going to happen, they don't show everything. Road proposals within 200 m show on a local a search but not on the Plan Search unless the road has planning permission.

Also there are things that don't need permission, e.g innocuous light industrial building nearby makes widgets. Every day a Transit draws up and loads up with widgets and drives off. Nobody notices. They change their transport method. Large articulated lorry comes once a week at 4.30am and makes a huge row backing into the sideway. This isn't a change of use requiring planning permission - they are still making widgets.

So, although this Plan Search is useful (and I routinely do it) it does have its limitations which need to be explained to a buyer client.

LostSocks

Addy1 wrote: »

Does it reduce legal fees for the buyer?

Yes. We had quotes that included the whole searches and had to pay out the full amount for searches upfront. But then once the solicitor started the ball rolling, he used the HIP's searches and then refunded our account with the money saved.