Trevor Kent
16th June 2008

RESPONSE TO HIP PETITION 
FROM 10 DOWNING STREET

16 June 2008

We received a petition asking:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to allow the continuation of First Day Marketing of residential property beyond 31st May 2008."

Details of Petition:

"Despite massive opposition the Home Information Pack has been introduced for all residential properties. Currently the marketing of a property can begin as soon as the HIP is ordered but the Government intends to end this concession on 31st May 2008 and will require that the pack is physically complete before marketing commences. This will cause delays for sellers wanting to begin marketing quickly and is an infringement of the personal liberty to sell a property at will. There is no sustainable argument in favour of ending First Day Marketing and we call on the Government to allow its continuance indefinitely."

• Read the petition
• Petitions home page

Read the Government's response

The temporary first day marketing provision was introduced in August 2007 in order to help smooth the implementation of HIPs while the system was bedding-in. The provision has been successful in doing this by allowing a property to be marketed without a HIP, provided that one has been commissioned, paid for, and is expected to arrive within 28 days.

On 8 May 2008, the Government announced an extension to the provision from 1 June to 31 December 2008 in order to provide a further period of flexibility. Following this period the Government expects the temporary measure to end.

If you want to see the Government website follow this link - Homeselling - epetition reply

Press Release
16th June 2008

Shapps: Hips are effectively dead

Commenting on the Carsberg Review into the property market which has found that Home Information Packs offer the ‘worst of all worlds’, Shadow Housing Minister, Grant Shapps , said:

"The Carsberg review has investigated HIPs and concluded that they are simply getting in the way of people interested in freely buying and selling their own homes. Experts and consumers now agree that HIPs are effectively dead, yet the government refuses to accept their inevitable demise.  

"Labour has let down everyone on the property ladder in Britain today but we intend to do everything possible to help hard pressed home owners by scrapping HIPs, axing stamp duty for first time buyers and doing away with density targets which has meant that too many flats have been built at the expense of family homes."  

ENDS

DAILY EXPRESS
Saturday June 14,2008

Trevor Kent
23rd May 2008

Trevor Kent
8th May 2008

If only politicians would listen to experts in fields where they intend to legislate, rather than running in like bulls in china shops - deaf to all but their own snortings, life would be so much easier. 

For certain if they had, we would never have been saddled with the farce that is the Home Information Pack, and Labour would not have had to eat more humble-pie in Westminster Village cafes than you could shake a 10p Tax Rate at 

Until The Housing Minister's feeble announcement  of a climb-down today, Labour really had intended, in just three weeks time, to make it a fineable offence to put a home on the market until ones HIP was in ones pocket.  

Just look at the Minister's own admission in her Statement today -  "of the 640,000 HIPs produced, the majority within 7-14 days". The 'majority' - what about the others, and what does '7 - 14 days' actually mean? One can only assume the lack of a precise 'average' figure for delivery means most were taking close to 14 days. That's a long time to wait before one is permitted to nail up a For Sale board, and begin advertising. 

Sadly, the whole nonsense has only been put back a few months, not scrapped; consequently commentators such as I will have to resume the drum-banging, the flag-waving and the petition-launching very soon. I'd really rather prefer to be spending my time trying to sell houses and earning a crust for my family to nibble on, rather than trying to open deaf ears in Parliament. However the fact is, thanks to Labour's failure to monitor and control  mortgage lenders' activities, the market has been decimated, so I've plenty of time on my hands to continue to fight the good fight. But I shouldn't have to, neither should Kirstie Allsopp or SPLINTA, or the NAEA RICS and Law Society - but we have to , because legislators don't listen! But voters do, they already have and they will again - and I hope it's soon!

Trevor Kent
Former President, National Association of Estate Agents
and property broadcaster.

01753 885522

Press Release
8th May 2008

The Minister for Housing and Planning (Caroline Flint): 

I am today laying amendments to the Home Information Pack Regulations to extend the temporary first day marketing provision, and to extend the temporary provision requiring HIPs to include the “Lease” only and to “authorise” other leasehold documents, from 1 June to 31 December 2008.  

The temporary first day marketing provision allows a property to be marketed without a HIP where the documents required for inclusion in the HIP have been commissioned and paid for, or arrangement for payment been made and are expected to arrive within 28 days.

We introduced the temporary first day marketing provision in order to help smooth the implementation of HIPs, and our evidence shows that it has been effective in doing this. However, we believe that a further period of the flexibility provided by the measure would be prudent.  I am, therefore, laying an order to amend the Home Information Packs Regulations to extend the provision from 1 June to 31 December 2008. 

The temporary provision requiring HIPs to include the “Lease” only, and to “authorise” other leasehold documents was introduced in response to concerns about delays and additional costs in obtaining leasehold information.  This provision is also due to expire on 31 May 2008. 

At the time the provision was introduced we also commissioned Ted Beardsall, Deputy Chief Executive of the Land Registry, to undertake a short assessment of the scale and nature of the problems with leasehold information and to advise on possible solutions.  Ted Beardsall’s assessment confirms that there are a number of longstanding issues in the provision and cost of leasehold information, which HIPs have thrown the spotlight on; agrees that the inclusion of all leasehold information prior to marketing would cause serious difficulties; and recommends further work to resolve them.

What is clear from the assessment is that it would be premature to lift the current temporary requirement for the lease only, before carrying out the further work it recommends.  I am also, therefore, laying an order to amend the Home Information Pack Regulations to extend the temporary provision for leasehold requirements from 1 June until 31 December 2008.

In the interim period, I have asked Ted Beardsall to convene a working group of key industry representatives to develop the options identified in his assessment into practical solutions in respect of:

* the type of leasehold information that should be required within a HIP, and the form this should take, having regard to the information that buyers need, their availability and costs.

* practical steps for helping to establish good practice for landlord and managing agents in the provision of leasehold information.

The working group will report to the Housing Minister in order to prepare and introduce final measures from 1 January 2009.

Home Information Packs were introduced to bring useful information up front in the home buying and selling process to increase transparency and create a better consumer experience of buying and selling a home.  We are already seeing positive benefits from HIPs:

 * lower up front costs for first time buyers;

 * greater competition in the property searches market leading to reductions in costs to consumers - over 80 local authorities now set lower searches fees, some by as much as £120;

 * over 700, 000 homes now have Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs);

 * on average £300 per dwelling saving if their EPC  recommendations are implemented; and  

* over 640,000 HIPs produced, the majority within 7 – 14 days. 

The amendments I have announced today, together with the extension of insurance cover for property searches which I announced on 6 March, will bring all temporary measures within the same timescale, providing industry with the certainty that the implementation of HIPs should be complete from 31 December 2008. 

However, it is clear from our Area Trials and analysis of our monitoring that more needs to be done to ensure that consumers realise the full benefits of HIPs.  In particular, to ensure that consumers get to see and are able to use the HIP.   Over the coming months, therefore, we will also take action to:

 * further build on the quality of the HIP, working with industry in developing innovative solutions to enhance the current product; and

 * ensure that consumers see and fully benefit from the information contained in the HIP early in the process, and encourage better practice standards and services consumers get.

Consumers want more general information about the property they are looking to buy – information they can relate to.  Although, the current HIP contains information that can be helpful to consumers and professionals alike, it is clear that we can go further in providing consumers with easily accessible information that will help in their decision to buy a home.  Information on access, boundaries, changes made to the property and fixtures and fittings are currently authorised for inclusion in the HIP.  However, this information is not currently being provided as part of the majority of HIPs.

In order to maximise the potential of HIPs in providing consumers with the information they want, we will develop in partnership with the property professionals, means for capturing consumer friendly information for inclusion within the HIP. This will draw on the lessons learnt from our Area Trials and consumer focus groups.

Industry stakeholders are also actively developing complementary initiatives to build on the content of the HIP, including an “exchange ready pack” - a pack with consumer-facing documents and legal information, including a draft contract to enable swift exchange and completion once an offer has been accepted.   We will continue to work with our Stakeholder Panel to consider this and other initiatives for building on the quality of the HIP.

We recognise that many agents are not showing prospective buyers the HIP and that consumers are not requesting to see it.  We have asked the industry to respond to this consumer need by working with us to promote higher and consistent standards of practice that delivers better services to consumers, and to raise consumer awareness of the service standards they should expect and what they can do if things go wrong.  In particular we will:

 * work with our Stakeholder Panel to support the RICS, the Law Society, the NAEA and other stakeholders who are currently exploring what can be done to bring together best practice into a single set of standards that consumers can expect from property professionals in the home buying and selling process; 

 * work with the industry to ensure that agents and HIP providers understand and act on the requirement to prepare the “basic HIP” as soon as the EPC is produced, so that it is available to potential buyers early in the process; and

 * consider what more might be needed to ensure that consumers are protected throughout the home buying and selling process.

I believe these measures will provide greater certainty and stability to consumers and industry about the operation of HIPs.

Press Release
8th May 2008

Shapps: Time for another Brown U-turn

Commenting on the news that the final stage of the roll-out of controversial Home Information Packs is being delayed, Shadow Housing Minister, Grant Shapps , said:  

"This latest HIPs delay is the third time that Labour has had to admit that this botched initiative can never work. The time has surely come for Gordon Brown to do one of his famous U-turns and scrap HIPs once and for all."

ENDS

 31st March 2008

Tory call to scrap 'expensive and slow' home packs

by JAMES CHAPMAN

Home Information Packs are taking weeks to produce and costing far more than the Government predicted, according to a report from estate agents.  Some of the packs are costing more than £500 and more than half are over the target price of £350. And only one in eight is being produced within the predicted time of four to five working days. Fifty-two per cent are taking 12 days, the report claims, while 31 per cent are taking longer than 15 working days.   Today the Conservatives will use a debate on the Housing and Regeneration Bill in the Commons to force a vote on abandoning HIPs altogether. The National Association of Estate Agents' research found most of its members believe the packs have not speeded up the selling process, nor given buyers useful information

The packs were introduced by the Government with claims they would provide key information to home buyers and so speed up purchases.

They were opposed by estate agents, the legal profession and the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Sellers must pay for a HIP, which includes a 'green' rating requiring a visit and survey by a domestic energy assessor. It also includes council searches and proof of ownership.

More than 370,000 packs have been prepared since last summer.

The National Association of Estate Agents' research found most of its members believe the packs have not speeded up the selling process, nor given buyers useful information.

The delays in receiving HIPs will increase pressure on ministers to backtrack on making sellers have a pack ready before they can even put a home on the market. At present a pack must only have been commissioned before putting a home up for sale, but this will end on May 31.

Earlier this month consumer watchdogs said HIPs had been introduced in the 'worst piece of consumer legislation in 50 years'.

Tory housing spokesman Grant Shapps said: 'Everyone involved, be it experts or consumers, recognises that HIPs have failed in every aspect.'

A spokesman for the Communities and Local Government Department said: 'The average cost of a HIP is between £300 and £350 which, apart from the energy performance certificate, is already part of the buying and selling process.

'The most authoritative analysis of HIPs found 72 per cent of consumers were satisfied with them.'

• Only 4 per cent of newly built flats sold at auction over the last three years made a profit, according to new figures.

Auctioneers Allsop, which said such sales were often repossessions, found the value of the average new flat dropped 26 per cent when it went under the hammer.

The report is a major worry for buy-to-let investors who are seeing the value of their portfolios plunge. Allsop blamed the problems on an over-supply of flats.

NAEA
11th March  2008

GOVERNMENT SPINS HIPS TRIALS

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) is very concerned that the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) is trying to cover up much of the MORI research into the Home Information Pack Area Trials.

 Last week the Government released details of the HIPs area trials and the NAEA was infuriated that the CLG decided to try to use agents as a scapegoat for the problems of HIPs.  However, as the NAEA suspected, a full reading of the research document reveals much more than suggested by the CLG’s own press release.

 Peter Bolton King, chief executive, NAEA, comments, “Clearly desperate to say something positive, the press release concentrated on the seller’s perception of the HIP.  ‘Eight out of ten felt that it contained everything they expected’ – well I would hope so, it is after all their house!  Is this really as positive as it gets? Nowhere did the press release concentrate on the buyers.  After all, the legislation was actually brought out for the benefit of the buyer in order to give them up-front information about the property they are looking to buy.” 

 A more detailed reading of the report, itself, indicates why the Government’s press release was so limited.

 Mr Bolton King continues, “Only 29% of sellers who actually sold a property with a HIP felt that it made the process more efficient.  As far as Buyers were concerned, only 20% felt that the HIP sped up the buying process and 41% of buyers thought that a HIP made the buying process more difficult.  Perhaps one of the most telling figures was that 76% said that the HIP had no effect on their decision to buy!”

 The NAEA is convinced that it is extremely important for the estate agency industry to engage with government.  However, this research confirms what the NAEA and its members have consistently said, that HIPs are not the way to improve the buying and selling process.

 Peter Bolton King, concludes, “It is a pity that the Government chose to ignore what we and other stakeholders said to them over the last few years. At the end of the day it is the consumer who is losing out.”

- Ends –

TREVOR KENT is former President of The NAEA  
01753 885522
ISDN Radio available.

Trevor Kent
7th March 2008

TREVOR KENT IS A FOUNDER MEMBER OF ANTI-HIP GROUP SPLINTA WHO SAYS : 
HIPS 'RESEARCH' GREETED WITH DERISION.

A press release today (6th March) from the Communities and Local Government department concerning Home Information Packs (HIPs), has been greeted with derision by the leading anti-HIP campaign group SPLINTA.

The CLG release details some of the findings of research by Ipsos MORI into the trials of HIPs carried out between November 2006 and April 2007, prior to their general introduction later in 2007. At the time the trials were heavily criticised as the publicity for the packs AND  was subsidised by CLG to the tune of some £4 million pounds. None of the results of the trials were made public before the imposition of HIPs on the entire residential property market. 

Head of SPLINTA, Nick Salmon, said today that the figures quoted in the CLG press release are being used to 'spin' the supposed benefits of HIPs and paint a thoroughly misleading picture of the reality of the packs in today's market. 

"CLG say 72% of sellers were satisfied with HIPs in the trial. Of course they were, as the packs costs them nothing. I'm surprised it wasn't 100%. Apparently 79% agreed that trial packs contained 'everything expected'. That is a meaningless statement as we have no idea what those sellers were expecting. 81% understood the documents including the Energy Performance Certificate. An EPC graph could be understood by a child but I don't believe that many people would understand easements, covenants and wayleaves without professional guidance, so I question just which documents these sellers were supposedly understanding."

Salmon went on to highlight a glaring omission from the CLG release.  "I find it extremely telling that this release is absolutely silent on the matter of whether or not HIPs are actually having a beneficial impact on transactions times and fall through rates in property sales - which was the original goal before saving the planet took priority.  In case they have not got that far in their analysis of the trial, let me tell the Minister what is happening in the real world today. HIPs are doing absolutely nothing to hold sales together, nor are they cutting the time between acceptance of offer and exchange of contracts. Buyers don't want to see them, and sellers have no interest in them. If she does not believe me, I challenge her to spend a few days actually in estate agents' offices to see the reality for herself" 

SPLINTA has campaigned against the Home Information Pack since 2001 and now has an online petition running on the Number 10 Downing Street website to try and head off a further change to the HIP legislation later this year. Nick Salmon thinks the Government has been taken aback by the massive public response to the petition and sees moves afoot to tarnish estate agents so that the aim of the petition fails. 

"HIPs are unloved by the property industry and unwanted by the public. They will become even more unpopular in June when the Government plans to end the ability of a seller to go on the market immediately they want to. Our petition against the ending of this 'first day marketing' concession is in the Top 20 by size of over 7,700 such petitions on the Number Ten Downing Street website. The implication of the CLG press release is that estate agents are in some way responsible for the fact that buyers don't see a HIP. They don't see it because they are not interested in seeing it and the suggestion is a blatant attempt by CLG to create a reason for ending first day marketing. If it wasn't potentially so serious, it would be laughable" 

Further information and comment: Nick Salmon 07831 805455

Notes to Editors. 

1. Currently the marketing of a property can begin as soon as the HIP is ordered but the Government intends to end this concession on 31st May 2008 and will require that the pack is physically complete before marketing commences. Campaigners argue that because HIPs take days to produce there will be delays for sellers wanting to sell quickly and the ending of the concession to begin marketing on the chosen first day is an infringement of the personal liberty to sell a property at will. The petition http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/homeselling has already attracted almost 9,000 signatures. 

2. The SPLINTA (SELLERS PACK LAW IS NOT THE ANSWER) campaign is supported by over 1,900 firms of estate agents, surveyors and solicitor/conveyancers with some 4,000 offices in England and Wales. For more information please visit http://www.splintacampaign.co.uk  

3. The CLG press release is here:  http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/713987  

SPLINTA
P.O. Box 398
Stevenage
SG1 9DR

ARMED WITH THIS RELEASE TREVOR KENT APPEARED ON BBC RADIO ALONGSIDE SHADOW HOUSING MINISTER GRANT SHAPPS WHO HAD SHORTLY BEFORE DESCRIBED LABOUR PARTY SPIN ON HIPS AS A 'FARCE'. BETWEEN THEM THEY LEFT LISTENERS IN NO DOUBT THAT HOME INFORMATION PACKS MUST BE REPEALED. 

Trevor Kent
01753 885522
trevor@homeinformationpacks.com 

Trevor Kent
29th February 2008

From my postbag !

Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 2:55 PM

Subject: HIPS

For the attention of Trevor Kent Esq.

 

Dear Sir

I write in support of your campaign against this ill considered legislation. Can you give me any indication as to whether this legislation is being enforced, by whom and to what degree. I would be most grateful for any information on this.

 

Richard Thomas

29th January 2008

VOTE HERE TO RETAIN FIRST DAY MARKETING

Home Information Packs 'to affect market'

Trevor Kent
25th January 2008

HIPs, A PLEA FOR YOUR HELP - FROM TREVOR KENT 

Dear Homeowner, Homeseller or Homebuyer

 

If you are planning to sell a home any time in the future, you'll want to know this.

 

Despite massive opposition, the infamous and costly Home Information Pack has now been introduced for all residential properties coming to the market to be sold (and soon those to be let too).  They cost £300 to £600 and include a mandatory inspection of the interior of your home - and you still pay even if you don't sell.

 

Currently the government allows you to begin  marketing your home  as soon as the property's  HIP is 'ordered'.  However, Gordon Brown intends to end this concession on 31st May 2008.  The Law will then require that your HIP is physically complete before an advert can be placed or a board erected.  This will mean you may have to wait 15 days before the first viewer can inspect your home.  Mr Brown's new law also directs that the owner or agent be fined  £200 a day if caught marketing before the HIP arrives.

 

This is what you can do about it...

 

There is now an approved petition on the No 10 Downing Street website calling for 'First Day Marketing' to be allowed to continue.  Please sign it online and also forward this email to as many people as you can, especially friends and colleagues who may be thinking of buying or selling a home in the future.

 

Write to your MP pointing out you believe a fine for putting your home on the market when YOU want to is an infringement of your liberty.  If Labour believe they will lose votes and jeopardize their re-election, they may think again.  The Conservatives have already pledged to repeal HIPs.

 

Here's the link to the petition: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/homeselling

 

Many thanks for your support.

 

TREVOR KENT

Former President of The National

Association of Estate Agents &

Property Broadcaster

www.homeinformationpacks.com

01753 885522

Trevor Kent
11th January 2008

The Fight Goes On

In the House of Lords next Wednesday (16 January) Lord Dixon-Smith will move a Motion to annul the Home Information Pack (Amendment) Regulations 2007 which were laid in the House of Commons on 23 November 2007.  If Lord Dixon-Smith's motion is carried, a Humble Petition will be presented to Her Majesty The Queen calling for annulment.  

3rd January 2008

Communities and Local Government Committee Departmental Annual Report 2007

Thursday 3 January 2008

The decision to delay the introduction of Home Information Packs (HIPS) was taken on political rather than economic grounds, the Communities and Local Government Select Committee concludes today.

In its report on the DCLG Annual Report 2007 the Committee criticises the introduction of HIPs saying it was one of the areas where the Department failed to deliver. However the Committee commends the Department in a number of other areas of its work.

MPs say the decisions to delay and then to phase in HIPs for homes of different sizes across a period of months owed more to a failure of nerve, "in the face of vocal opposition from the press and others rather than the general conditions prevailing in the housing market."

CLG Committee Chairman Dr Phyllis Starkey said: "The long and tortuous process of introducing Home Information Packs signals a failure of delivery on CLG's part. It is clear the reasons for this lie in poor preparation and then a retreat by the Department's ministerial team."

More generally, the Committee recognises the Department faces difficult challenges because to a greater degree than perhaps any other Government Department CLG depends on others to deliver what it promises.

The Committee commends the work CLG has done with its partners on the Decent Homes programme, which it describes as an outstanding example of local government delivery.

The Committee is also encouraged that the overall number of accidental fire-related deaths has fallen to 227 in 2006-7 from 349 in 1998-9. However it notes that the time taken by fire services to respond to emergency calls is rising. In 2001 46 per cent of fires were responded to within five minutes but in 2006 that figure fell to 37 per cent. It would like to see more research into the impact of congestion on response times.

On race equality and community cohesion the Committee commends the introduction of a new sharper Public Service Agreement as part of the 2007 CSR process and it would like the Department to go even further and seek to influence change in local areas where cohesion is in question or where new threats to cohesion arise.

The Committee's Second Report of Session 2007-08-DCLG Annual Report 2007-will be published at 00.01 am on Thursday 3 January 2007.

Copies can be obtained on request from the Communities and Local Government Committee. Copies of the Report will be sent to all those who submitted evidence to the inquiry.

The Report can be viewed on the Committee's website from approximately noon on Thursday 3 January at: www.parliament.uk/clgcom <http://www.parliament.uk/clgcom>.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

In the Department's 2006 annual report HIPs were identified as a "key priority" for the coming year. Within weeks of this the then Secretary of State Ruth Kelly announced that the pack would not include a mandatory Home Condition Report, intended to save house buyers the cost and time spent purchasing expensive surveys of their own.

HIPs should have then been rolled out in June 2007 but were introduced two months late in August following considerable uncertainty and then only for homes with four or more bedrooms. Three-bedroomed homes were added in September, Only in December 2007 were the weakened HIPs being introduced for all homes marketed for sale.

Committee Membership is as follows: Dr Phyllis Starkey MP (Chair, Lab), Sir Paul Beresford MP (Con), Mr Clive Betts MP (Lab), John Cummings MP (Lab), Jim Dobbin MP (Lab/Co-op), Andrew George MP (Lib Dem), Mr Greg Hands MP (Con), Anne Main MP (Con), Mr Bill Olner MP (Lab), Dr John Pugh MP (Lib Dem), Emily Thornberry MP (Lab).

3rd January 2008

Conservatives

Independent report slams Labour for playing politics with HIPs

Responding to the annual Communities and Local Government Select Committee report which concludes that the delay to introducing Home Information Packs (HIPs) was taken on political rather than economic grounds, Shadow Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, said:

"Gordon Brown promised a new open type of politics yet this report slams Labour for playing politics with HIPs. The Government has buried the unfavourable results from their £4m HIPs trials by refusing to release them. The shambolic and secretive way in which Yvette Cooper has rolled out this botched policy is a disgrace.

"At a time when the housing market needs certainty and stability Labour provided chaos and confusion. Yvette Cooper should release the results of the HIPs’ trials, apologise to hard pressed home owners, and scrap this hated policy. The market doesn't need HIPs, the industry doesn't want them and consumers don't care about them.

“Labour should perform one of their trademark climbdowns and axe a policy which is increasingly strangling a struggling housing market."

ENDS

For further information, please contact Giles Kenningham 020 7984 8186 or 07765407903. Please find attached the Communities and Local Government Select

Notes to Editors

TEN WAYS HOME INFORMATION PACKS AREN’T VERY INFORMATIVE

The Government’s Home Information Pack regulations make a distinction between information that is ‘required’ in the Pack (compulsory elements) and that which is ‘authorised’ (optional). It is up to the seller whether to pay to include optional information.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si2007/20071667.htm#8

In addition to licensing blight, Home Information Packs fail to require home sellers to include information on:

1. Subsidence, ground stability and the effects of mining or extractions.

2. Flood risk and other actual or potential environmental hazards.

3. Electrical safety of the wiring

4. Any restrictive covenants, including restrictions on resale or restrictions on use.

5. Liabilities to repair or maintain other buildings or land, not within the property itself (e.g. church property – under chancel repair liability).

6. Acquisition of any neighbouring land (other than the property itself) by a public authority that affects or might affect the property.

7. The potential or actual effects of existing transport services, including roads, waterways, trams and underground or over-ground railways (e.g. noise problems)

8. Near to any new planned road or highway, where such a development is more than 200 metres from the property.

9. Whether the property has failed to meet building or safety standards, and whether or not the property has any warranty or guarantee for defects on its design or building.

10. Rights of access to, over or affecting the property interest (e.g. can people walk through your land)

Government dropped plans to INCLUDE full flood risk information

The Environment Agency made representations for flood risk information to be included – yet the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (now the DCLG) dropped the plans. They previously Committee report.

said that including the information would be a key part of their plans against flooding:

“Home Information Packs have been developed to make the procedure for buying and selling homes in England and Wales easier and to bring pertinent information to the attention of those in the process of house buying. Defra is working closely with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Environment Agency to develop a suitable flood risk search for inclusion in the packs. As part of the overall HIPs work a consultation was held in Spring 2005, and a voluntary ‘dry-run’ of the home information pack will be carried out in Summer 2006 with a view to introducing these in early 2007.”

DEFRA, Increasing Awareness and Resilience to All Forms of Flooding Including Through Improved Flood Warning, October 2005.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/policy/strategy/rf5rf6rf7.htm

WARNINGS IGNORED ON DIRTY LAND RISKS

The Council of Property Search Organisations has advised, “following extensive and detailed discussions during 2005, it was agreed by Government that flood, ground stability and other environmental searches should be ‘authorised’ for inclusion in the HIP and not required.  If this position is to be reviewed, we urge Government to consider carefully what environmental information should be included in the HIP to protect home buyers from being liable for high clean-up costs.  The inclusion of flood and ground stability information alone does not go far enough in informing homebuyers about environmental risks and fails to recognise the threat from contamination. Contamination poses a risk to both the health of the occupants and the value of the property. If contamination is found, liability for cleaning the site rests with the owner, and clean-up costs sometimes reach hundreds of thousands of pounds” (para 18-19).

Council of Property Search Organisations, CoPSO's response to CLG's HIPs update: Towards 1 June, February 2007.

http://www.copso.org.uk/publications/index.html

2nd January 2008

Trevor Kent

Trevor Kent
17 December 2007

RIGHTMOVE HIGHLIGHTS GOVERNMENT WRONG MOVE ON HIPS

NAEA
14 December 2007

Home Information Packs: Views of practitioners still divided – Lords Committee

HIPS 

As everyone should be aware, from today all residential properties coming onto the market require a HIP unless they come under one of a small number of exceptions.  There is still some confusion over properties currently requiring a HIP.  The  NAEA re-iterate that ,providing the property was marketed before the relevant date, a HIP is currently not required and no decision has been made as to when this may change.  Anyone telling you differently is incorrect.

Home Information Packs: Views of practitioners still divided – Lords Committee

The House of Lords Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee has today published a range of comments from practitioners in the housing market, which show that views about HIPs are still divided.

The Government has introduced HIPs for sales of residential properties in three phases: four-bedroom properties from 1 August 2007; three-bedroom properties from 10 September; and all properties from 14 December.

Regulations laid in late-November provide that, until 1 June 2008, while the lease must be included in the HIP, other leasehold documents will not have to be included.  The documents in question include property management rules, summaries of service charges, and requests for payments towards matters such as ground rent and building damage insurance. 

In its comments on these Regulations, the Merits Committee recognises that the Government has laid them in order to lessen the burden which the HIP requirements place on those marketing homes.  But the Committee also recalls its concern about the original policy that, without the mandatory inclusion of Home Condition Reports, HIPs might imperfectly achieve the objective of providing home-buyers with better information.

The Committee has received comments from a number of interested parties: the Association of Home Information Pack Providers; the Council for Mortgage Lenders; the Council of Property Search Organisations; the Law Society; the National Association of Estate Agents; the Royal Institution of Charted Surveyors; and the WWF. Practitioners in the housing market are split in their response to the HIP initiative in general, and the effects of the latest Regulations in particular. 

The Committee urges the Government to keep the implementation of HIP policy under review and to provide full information about the practical effects of its introduction.

In its report on the Home Information Pack (Amendment) Regulations 2007 (SI 2007/3301), the Merits Committee reviews the changes that the Government have made to the content and timing of their HIP policy over the last year, and draws on comments made to it by a number of interested organisations.    The Committee has reported the Regulations on the ground that they “give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House”.