HIP, HIP, AWRY
I often use this column to sound off about something I feel strongly about. But this week I want to declare my absolute, sitting on the fence, on the one hand on the other hand, confusion. I am talking about Home Information Packs. They apply in England and Wales and are not to be confused with the much more detailed Home Reports which were introduced in Scotland for all home sales from the first of this month.
HIPs were phased in for home sales in England and Wales during 2007 and since about a year ago they have been needed for every sale of a domestic property. The HIP contains an energy performance certificate, evidence of ownership – normally a certificate from the Land Registry – and the searches to show that an airport runway is not due to be built through the garden. At around £400 a go they have been partly blamed – along with the credit crunch of course – for the dramatic drop both in the number of homes sold and in the price paid for the declining number that have changed hands.
Now the Government has been accused of turning the screw on the market further. It announced this week that from 6 April 2009 a HIP would be needed as soon as the property went on the market. At the moment the HIP has to be commissioned then but can be produced a lot later. At the same time the content of the HIP will be boosted by a property information questionnaire (PIQ). The seller has to answer a couple of dozen questions including details of council tax, parking, heating, damage, alterations, damp, dry rot, boundaries, and rights of access.
So why am I sitting on the fence (did I mention there was a fence showing the boundary between this property and the next which was damaged in the storm of January 2007 and that it once blocked a right of way but that was quashed by the court in 1993 shortly after my neighbour parked her car in the drive and went through the damp patch at the bottom)?
I just do not know if the cost of a HIP is worth the knowledge the buyer gains or if a HIP has ever helped any buyer to say ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘will you take £10,000 less?’ Nor do I know if HIPs have contributed to the decline in house sales and prices.
And because we cannot do an experiment in a parallel universe where there are no HIPs we will never know. So we will just have to trust the Government. So that’s all right then.
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