UK Property Blog by HIP-Consultant.co.uk

It is fair to say that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) have never been the greatest admirers of Home Information Pack legislation. It is envisaged that this week they will combine efforts when putting their views forward to the Government to attack HIPS once again.

The latest stance is one of focussed criticism towards the searches within the Home Information Pack whilst seemingly and suprisingly asking for some aspects to remain and apparently agreeing that the planned Property Information Questionnaire (P.I.Q.) would be useful.

RICS’ director of external affairs, Gillian Charlesworth, said: “These legal documents (searches) must be taken out of the packs and left to buyers and their advisers to obtain at the appropriate time during the transaction.” RICS wants HIPs to be replaced with a voluntary report as per the Carsberg report.
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The Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ) has been announced as one of the next steps in progressing the Home Information Pack which will add further information and benefits to the existing HIP.

The Communities and Local Government has issued a consultation document as part of the new planned ‘mandatory’ documents. The consultation contains the following parts:

• the leasehold requirements in the Home Information Pack (HIP) (Part 1) - we will discuss in a later post which will follow
• the inclusion of the Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ) in the HIP (Part 2).

We will be considering and formulating our views on the questions within the paper over the coming weeks. HIP-Consultant.co.uk are interested in your views and welcome comments based on this consultation.

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This week has been eventful for sure in the continued life of Home Information Packs. HIPS are now 1 year old and news headlines continue to be made from the debate on Home Information Packs (HIPS). Recently, significant reports of non-compliance of the legislation have come to light and been acknowledged by leading figures involved within the industry.

Yesterday, it was widely reported by many news agencies including the BBC that some agents, I must stress only ’some’ agents; are flouting the law and are proceeding to market properties without the legally required Home information Packs.

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Home Information Packs (HIPS) are now a year old this week. The past year certainly has been controversial at times for HIP packs as the legislation has been rolled out; which lets be honest was to be expected. Home information packs have been reported upon as often is the case in the UK press with a negative slant. The legislation has unfortunately become a ‘political football’ with the debate showing little signs in slowing.

Home information Packs were designed to provide information to the home buyer, speed up transaction times and reduce the number of failed completions. Home information Packs or as they will be known Home Reports are due to be implemented in Scotland from December this year.

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The Carsbergy Review, written by the author Sir Bryan Carsberg is recommending a  number of reforms for the property buying and selling industry of the residential property sector in England and Wales.

The Carsberg Review was commissioned by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) and the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA). This fact has brought into question the independence of the report and the following findings contained within it.

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HIP-Consultant.co.uk has been asked by other websites to swap reciprocal links which will provider visitors of both sites with useful related information.

Due to these requests increasing we have now re-structured our web directory and links pages. With this post comes an invitation to all relevant website owners to be considered for inclusion within our directory. We have wrtten a guide to link to HIP-Consultant.co.uk. Please follow this guide if you would like to be considered.

We look forward to hearing from you.

HIP-Consultant.co.uk have seen a big upturn in the level of direct instructions we have recieved.

So why is this? - this is a question we have asked within our team, I have written some of our thoughts and views in this post.
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A new £10 million package of measures to support home owners who may be facing difficulties with their mortgage, is announced today by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling and Housing Minister Caroline Flint.
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The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), the residential sales arm of the National Federation of Property Professionals (NFOPP), is disappointed that first day marketing is not going to be scrapped completely, but welcomes the move by the Minister for Housing and Planning to work with the industry to make HIPs more effective.
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