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Home Information Packs:the facts, a year on
One year on, and Home Information Packs (HIPs) remain as controversial as ever. A major survey of estate agents and solicitors by the Sellers' Pack Law is not the Answer (SPLINTA) campaign has revealed a damning picture of the ineffectiveness of HIPs and highlights the damage that the pack is inflicting on the housing market.
Two of the key targets set by the government for HIPs are the speeding up of sales and a reduction in the number of abortive transactions that fall through between acceptance of an offer and exchange of contracts.
98 per cent of survey respondents said HIPs are either not making any difference to the speed of sales or, worse, they are actually slowing down the process and 95 per cent of respondents said HIPs are not helping to prevent abortive sales.
At the moment, the marketing of a property can start when the HIP is ordered, but from December 2008, the government will require that the completed pack is ready before the marketing begins.
The ending of this 'First Day Marketing' was postponed from last June by housing minister, Caroline Flint.
Ninety five per cent of the property professionals answering the survey are in no doubt that ending First Day Marketing would be detrimental to the property market.
Nick Salmon, the head of SPLINTA, said: “This survey is a damning indictment of HIPs and shows that the consumer is being forced to pay for something that simply does not work.
“This survey shows the true picture of what practitioners dealing with property sales every day have experienced with HIPs,” Mr Salmon went on to say.
However, monitoring by the Association of Home Information Pack Providers (AHIPP) shows that HIPs do deliver benefits to homebuyers and sellers.
They say that the packs have significantly reduced the time taken to exchange of contracts by an average of 12 days, in some cases even more, and that homebuyers are able to make better informed decisions about their purchase.
The price of a local authority search has reduced by an average of 30%, a shift that never would have taken place had HIPs not been introduced.
Paul Broadhead, deputy director general at the AHIPP said: “Even in their present incomplete form HIPs are already having a positive impact on the market.
“Consumers are benefiting from faster transactions, reduced stress, cheaper searches and better protection. With more consumer friendly information in packs from the beginning of next year along with the ending of estate agents marketing homes without packs, the benefits will be increasingly obvious for all to see.
“I believe the government should now go even further. The provision of a condition report and full environmental information would really drive consumer demand for HIPs,” Mr Broadhead went on to say.
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