HIPs – how we ended up in this mess (rant!)

14 August 2008

The original idea was that the seller would assemble all the information that the buyer would require, before putting the house on the market. That would speed up the process, leading to speedier completions.

Many of us with long experience were dubious about the logic. And we were very sceptical about the government’s plans for implementing HIPs.

We can already see that we were right on the second point:

• Transactions never proceed faster than the slowest link in the chain. Because of the period – over 4 months – when not all properties required HIPs, transactions in the pipeline now (and for some months to come) involve plenty of cost and not many benefits
• The survey – which was originally going to be part of HIPs – had to be dropped because there weren’t enough qualified surveyors to cope with the workload
• Many lenders have said that they will not be able to rely on the information in HIPs: work will therefore have to be done twice.

Whether we were right that HIPs will cause more problems than they solve, time will tell.

Meanwhile, there is one spark of good news. The Energy Performance Certificate – originally due to be implemented in 2009, but added to the HIP at the last minute – should make a genuine contribution to understanding our carbon footprint… and, of course, to keeping our energy bills under control.

< my fees

moving house: buying ● selling ● both ● HIPs

home ● probate ● probate in Spain ● wills ● Spanish wills ● transferring equity ● remortgaging ● fees ● what clients say ● contact me

© J M Harrison 2010

site developed by Mark Iliff, Talespinner