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Thursday, 07 May 2009 10:27 Sam Collins News - Home Information Packs

Despite wide criticism of Home Information Packs (HIPs), buyers are benefiting from the change in legislation introduced last month.

Property search company Sourcing Property believes that the upfront information provided in the Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ) helps save time and money.

Director Jo Eccles said: "The one clear benefit of the revised HIPs legislation is the PIQ, which is extremely useful for buyers.

"There are a large proportion of leasehold properties in London, and the PIQ details the lease length, service charge and ground rent, among other information, which means that buyers immediately know what they’re dealing with.

"Consequently, buyers no longer have to rely on the vendor/agent’s word or memory about these details, thus reducing the risk of potentially finding out something to the contrary once the buying process has started and they are already paying legal fees.

"Also, the upfront cost of a HIP can act as a type of quality control, deterring speculative vendors who want to ‘test’ the market, which can be incredibly frustrating for all parties (buyers, estate agents, search agents) – in theory vendors won’t pay for a HIP if they’re not serious about selling.

"HIPs are understandably a contentious issue, but in my view, anything that provides detailed information on the property upfront has to be more helpful to the market in the long run."

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Comments (3)

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Self-serving tripe

Of course they WOULD say that, wouldn't they? I have bought 30 properties in my life, and not once did a sale fall through because of non-discloure of information. HIPS are a government-sponsored job creation scheme that also generates VAT. Trouble is, HIPS was the first factor to tip the housing market, so Brown's clever trick has (as usual) backfired. Until HIPs are canned, the housing market will not fully recover.

Derek Jones , May 07, 2009

Branch Manager

What a surprise! yet another search / HIP provider spouting rubbish about the benefits of this ill-conceived document. The sheer amount of messing about, and tweaking of HIP’s tells you that they didn’t work and still don’t work as we were all conned into believing they would. They don’t speed up the transaction with the majority of the buying public not bothering to read the bloody thing even when they are forced to by the agent or there own solicitor. In fact many solicitors are finding the type of search done inadequate and often out of date.

Jason Coombes , May 07, 2009 | url

Leasehold HIPs and the Conveyancing Process

Whist I do not agree that HIPs have speeded up the conveyancing process there is a valid argument to say that it has speeded up the leasehold conveyancing process by making sure that the lease is available up front. Pre-HIP a buyer’s conveyancers would often have to wait days for this document

Fridays , December 26, 2009 | url