hipsandhcrs

From 1st June 2008 the Home Information Pack must be complete before a property can be marketed by an estate agent. At the moment, the HIP only has to be ordered for the property to be marketed.  With some HIP providers seeing a delay of up to three weeks for the Home Information Packs to be completed, this could result in significant delay for sellers. One of the main reasons for delay is that local authorities and indeed the search companies are not providing search results quickly enough.

We believe that the problems with local authority searches will be largely overcome by June and buyers will benefit tremendously from a complete Home Information Pack when making a decision to put in an offer on a property or not.

Read the rest of this entry »

hipsandhcrs welcomes the announcement from junior housing minister Iain Wright last week that local authority and search companies must work together to improve the quality and speed of the search service. He expects searches to be provided within 24 hours a major improvement on the current situation with some local authority searches taking weeks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well 2007 will be remembered in the property industry in England and Wales as the year in which Home Information Pack (HIP) were introduced to revolutionise the home buying and selling process. Unfortunately for HIPs, the rollout has not been managed as well as it could have been and it has coincided with a slowdown in the housing market; this has provided the reactionary forces within the property industry with excellent ammunition to use against Home Information Packs. It is expected that HIPs will continue to come under pressure throughout 2008 and the benefits of the packs will only start to be widely accepted twelve months from now in 2009.

hipsandhcrs welcomes the recent announcement from the government that Home Information Packs (HIPS) will be rolled out to all properties in England and Wales from the 14th December 2007.

The only exception is for properties that were already for sale before the  commencement date.  This means that two-bed homes on the market before 14th December 2007 will not require a HIP.  However, astute sellers still have the option to purchase a HIP to improve the saleability of their home. Read the rest of this entry »

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors is putting pressure on the Government to further delay full rollout of Home Information Packs (HIPS). They claim that the introduction of HIPS has reduced the number of larger homes being marketed as speculative sellers are put off by the cost of the HIP. They also expect the number of smaller homes being marketed when HIPS are fully rolled out to be affected in the same way, which the Institute fears will make it even more difficult for first time buyers to get on the housing ladder.

The Association of Home Information Packs providers responded to the allegations by saying that the RICs had forgotten that first time buyers are set to benefit most from the full introduction of HIPS as they will not have to pay for the information in the HIP and they will be in a position to make a more informed decision.

AHIPP’s Deputy Director General, Paul Broadhead, said: “Research amongst our own Estate Agency members suggests that whilst the supply of property on the market is lower than usual at this time of year, the actual stock on Estate Agents books is not. This would suggest a lack of buyers in the market place, and as most buyers are sellers they are unlikely to put their home on the market if they are not thinking of moving.” Read the rest of this entry »