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HIPs TO GO, BUT MAKE IT QUICK - TREVOR KENT Former President NAEA |
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17TH
MAY 2010
"So we may be here at last, a
property world free of the nonsensical Home Information Pack;
a cause for which I have lobbied and toiled these ten or so
years. Rejoice rejoice!" says Trevor Kent, former
president of the National Association of Estate Agents.
Insiders say, with some certainty
it seems, that a Suspension Order has already been signed and
that it will be placed before Parliament early in the first
session of our new regime. Certainly a number of birds
would be brought to earth by this stone. The government will
be seen right from the start to be prepared to honour
Manifesto pledges and have no truck with special interest
groups' beatings - a course of action that will bode well
for the future of the strong and forthright
leadership the country will need for financial-mire extrication
over the next few years - and
sellers and their agents will know where they stand too, much
relieved. Not to mention the wider economy, so reliant upon a
healthy and confident property market free from obstacles to
growth.
However, until HIPs are suspended,
agents and private sellers will continue to fear civil
conviction and penalties should they start marketing a
home without a Home Information Pack - not just writing a
cheque for three or four hundred pounds upfront but also
having to wait days for the preliminary part of the HIP to
actually arrive before (legally) an ad can placed, a
word printed or an internet primed.
An intolerable situation for
some time now, but all the more unacceptable when the
licensed HIP producers (a closed shop with no competition) are
naturally rather more busy abandoning ship or building
life rafts rather than making themselves available for the
last few Packs. However, until the moment of suspension,
the Law of the Land is being broken -" put
yourself in the agents' position for a moment, the ultimate
penalty for marketing without a HIP is to be banned from
practice, yet their duty to their clients is to market their
homes but there is no one around to prepare the HIPs - is
that not the biggest Catch 22 one is ever likely to
face?", enquires Trevor Kent.
Grant Shapps, now our Housing
Minister, has been forthright with me and other
anti-HIPs lobbyists over the last two years promising "HIPs
will go", and I know he is well aware of the
difficulty that uncertainty and delay will cause to
everyone involved in the market. Both professional
service providers and private individuals selling
demand immediate marketing (many wrongly assuming from
the media that HIPs have already gone) and advisers
have to say "the law won't let us offer your home for
sale without a Pack". In a matter of days Trevor Kent
believes, without immediate suspension, agents and
private sellers will move from being sporadic
law-breakers to wholesale house-seller
insurrection! Not good, not healthy and frankly, not
fair.
Trevor Kent is a former President
of
The National Association of Estate
Agents,
a long time property commentator,
and
still a practicing estate agent in
Gerrards Cross
01753 885522
ISDN Radio by appointment
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