H.I.P. for selling home

lynnsarahj84

I found a comapany doing them for £210+vat (£246.75 all in) they were very helpful, answered all my questions and I had quite a few! they're www.southwalesdea.co.uk they did mine in 5 days and I dont even live in Wales I live in Lincolnshire!

Richard_Webster

For most people most of the time there is no reason for a seller to spend more than he has to in arranging a HIP. However if the prices are in the low £200s then they can't be using staff with any idea about the legal issues.

If properties are registered freehold then the HIP provider should be able to sort it out. If unregistered they will need somebody legally qualified to prepare the epitome of title to show the seller's right to sell.

If the seller bought an extra bit of land from a neighbour the chances are that won't get spotted and the HIP will miss it out - or worse I can imagine the scenario where all the HIP shows is the extra piece of land. See below...

This would happen in this sort of case: Fred and Mabel buy their bungalow 23 Acacia Gardens new in 1955. This would have an unregistered title to it. Fred was a keen gardener and when he retired in 1990 he bought an extra piece of garden from a neighbour, which gets a registered title because by then you had to register - but the house and the main part of the garden is still unregistered. Fred & Mabel die and their sons are selling the bungalow. They go to a cheap HIP provider who does a property enquiry at the Land Registry for 23 Acacia Gardens and finds there is a registered title for "Land adjoining 23 Acacia Gardens..." and promptly orders and downloads that title which is then incorporated in the HIP as the title to the property. Most of the property is unregistered but that is totally ignored!

I haven't actually seen that yet, but I bet it will happen!

If you have anything other than a straightforward registered freehold of the whole property then I would use a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to do the HIP.

Examples would be unregistered, mixed registered/unregistered, leasehold or "shared freehold" flats, leasehold houses or commonhold.

jangor_2

Having read all the above I am not sure I have done the right thing. I only moved seven months ago but am very unhappy and have started the wheel rolling. My EA offered HIPS at £299 + VAt and then I received a call from the Company offering me deferred payment. I did actually choose this option rather than pay £350 or so upfront when properties selling locally are taking months. I therefore have a bill of £410 which I must pay in ten months regardless of whether I sell. The energy assessor turned up this morning, was with me for over an hour and I just didn't feel convinced that this was purely an energy assessment. She also produced a camera and when I queried this, initially she advised it was for audit purposes but when I pressed where the pictures would go, as I understand it, she said some sort of Government website. I then queried the purpose of the energy assessment and was advised it was an EU directive. She measured repeatedly, looked behind curtains, checked out of windows, checked the ceiling and floor coverings, took pictures outside etc. etc. My initial understanding, many moons ago, was that HIPS was a measure to speed up the buying process but this seems contrary to what is going on. I also explained to the EA that I had the searches and land title documents in my possession, from my recent purchase of the property, but this made no difference. I am very suspicious.

BobProperty

jimc wrote: »

Not according to the Estate Agent Enforcement section at the OFT, it's not. I have been PMd by another MSE that TSOs had been briefed on exactly this point of 'increasing the instances'. I agree it's not been tested yet but it will be soon.

On a basic point of law, one advert is one instance. You can't claim seeing the same advert in the same place at two different times is two breaches of the law, otherwise two police officers clocking you speeding would be two speeding offences.

jimc wrote: »

Regardless of our ongoing disagreement about this point and your insistence that TSOs don't care, an incitement to deliberately break the law (such as Squat Now) has no place in an advice thread where law-abiding persons might take this opinion as considered advice and lay themselves open to exactly this action when it does occur.

I didn't say "don't care", I said "aren't interested". It will move up the priority list if they get a politically inspired nudge to do something about it, or be seen to do something about it. (c.f. Part P prosecutions. The law has been going for 3 years now and there have been 4 cases is it? I'm not convinced it has wiped out dodgy electrical installations in kitchens and bathrooms). I am certain though that TSOs aren't spending any significant amount of their working hours actively looking for missing HIPs.
As for "incitement to deliberately break the law (such as Squat Now)" you may infer from his handle that he has an interest in some activities which some people may find morally repugnant and which are only legal due to some quirks of English law.

WarrenWilson

Try OneMove who have their own HIP. They also have a flexible payment scheme - http://www.onemove.com/cms.php?m=service&s=hips

country_sport

Richard_Webster wrote: »

For most people most of the time there is no reason for a seller to spend more than he has to in arranging a HIP. However if the prices are in the low £200s then they can't be using staff with any idea about the legal issues.

If properties are registered freehold then the HIP provider should be able to sort it out. If unregistered they will need somebody legally qualified to prepare the epitome of title to show the seller's right to sell.

If the seller bought an extra bit of land from a neighbour the chances are that won't get spotted and the HIP will miss it out - or worse I can imagine the scenario where all the HIP shows is the extra piece of land. See below...

This would happen in this sort of case: Fred and Mabel buy their bungalow 23 Acacia Gardens new in 1955. This would have an unregistered title to it. Fred was a keen gardener and when he retired in 1990 he bought an extra piece of garden from a neighbour, which gets a registered title because by then you had to register - but the house and the main part of the garden is still unregistered. Fred & Mabel die and their sons are selling the bungalow. They go to a cheap HIP provider who does a property enquiry at the Land Registry for 23 Acacia Gardens and finds there is a registered title for "Land adjoining 23 Acacia Gardens..." and promptly orders and downloads that title which is then incorporated in the HIP as the title to the property. Most of the property is unregistered but that is totally ignored!

I haven't actually seen that yet, but I bet it will happen!

If you have anything other than a straightforward registered freehold of the whole property then I would use a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to do the HIP.

Examples would be unregistered, mixed registered/unregistered, leasehold or "shared freehold" flats, leasehold houses or commonhold.

Excellent point. I do HIP packs for some local agents and solicitors. Be very careful of cheap packs. I have seen many packs from these companies with missing titles etc which have caused many problems when the property is sold.

puddy

oh, im very confused reading all this, so what should a hip include that the ones you find on the internet might not?? ive got a leasehold flat

country_sport

You get what you pay for basically. I have found internet based companies HIPs packs full of mistakes. This could hold up a sale and Pi** your buyers off.
Ask your solicitor if they will do you one, most do these days.

rallynut_2

www.jeary-lewis.co.uk (you have to click on conveyancing to get through to HIPS) offer a HIP pack at a fixed, fully inclusive price of £275 for freehold and £295 for leasehold properties in Wiltshire. Once you have the HIP through them, they offer a 10% discount on the conveyancing sale fee, which actually is very competitive in the local market as well and based on the value of the property. They also offer a no exchange-no fee policy and no-cost deferred payment of the HIP fee until the sale has completed.

If you shop around locally, I'm sure most solicitors will offer a similar package and you have the re-assurance that legal bods are doing the work that they have done for centuries!

SunnyBrighton_2

Having recently sold and bought a house, I would suggest that you get the HIP done by the cheapest method possible. I didn't recognise my old house from the HIP (and it was done by a respected, recommended professional). Likewise, the HIP on the house I bought had little in common with where I now live. It seems to be a very generic, average, form of report. I still got my solicitor to carry out searches I wanted, and certainly didn't rely on something put together by a seller!
Anecdotally, asking around friends who have moved, and been forced to get a HIP done, and have looked closely at HIPs provided for their prospective purchases, not a single person has found them to be either useful, informative, helpful or time-saving. Indeed, our local paper published a report from estate agents, saying how great the HIPs were, and how they had speeded up sales by an average of - wait for it - 6 days!!
Having read the post by jangor, I'm now inclined to think that HIPs are not just another example of the govt's continuing total incompetence, but also there may well be another purpose to them.