People selling 3 beds must use Home Information Packs (Hips). Article Published: 15:08 10/09/2007 Article Classification: United Kingdom
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People selling 3 beds must use Home Information Packs (Hips).

The controversial HIP was first introduced for four-bedroom home sellers at the beginning of August 2007. After long drawn out discussion and debate.

The packs, which include energy performance certificates (EPCs) for the homes, are designed to speed up the house buying process. However, Hips have been opposed by many estate agents, financial advisors and surveyors who claim they complicate matters.

The government delayed the introduction of HIPs because there were not enough trained inspectors ready at launch. Other changes to the original plans include the dropping of a compulsory home condition report. The energy certificate is compulsory however and indicates how much money might be saved by measures such as better insulation and more efficient boilers.

Controversy

Since they were first proposed 10 years ago, the final introduction of Hips has been slow and painful. It has involved various regional trials and the abandonment last year of the home condition report, originally used as its central feature.

There have been delays which have threatened the prospective livelihoods of people who trained to become either home condition inspectors or domestic energy assessors.

Last month, the Law Society again told lawyers to warn their clients about Hips that contain personal searches of local authority information, rather than official searches provided by the local authorities themselves.

It said personal searches, carried out by Hip providers or even house sellers themselves, carried a higher risk of containing erroneous information.