Home Information Packs (HIP)

The Government is looking at a ‘rescue’ package for the current suffering housing market.   The government has pledged to “help people with housing” though has yet to announce the measures and is still working on the exact policy. One of the proposed measures which is being speculating upon is maybe to reduce, freeze or possibly scrap stamp duty. This possibility obviously has a massive impact on revenue to the Treasury.

The speculation in regard to stamp duty is causing the opposite effect that it would be hoped it would have, if it was to be reduced or removed. House sales are being postponed as potential buyers are stalling waiting for confirmation of ther Governments’ intentions. The Government has stated that the talk within the media regarding stamp duty is just speculation and that no proposals have been put forward.

The shadow Treasury spokesman, Philip Hammond, said mentioning a stamp duty suspension without confirming it one way or the other had “created a significant incentive for people to delay the purchase of a property in the hope of avoiding the payment of stamp duty on the transaction”.

“The uncertainty can only undermine the market further, reducing the volume of transactions when they are already at historic lows,” he said.

“Indeed, we now have the worst of both worlds - a potential delay in property transactions, but with no definite proposal on the table.”

Home sellers are reporting frustration at the Governements’ indecison in this matter and it does not seem that this has been considered. Many now feel that they must step forward and make an announcement as without it, the housing market could be stopped dead in its tracks.

We agree that a decison needs to now be made and announced, there is no room for uncertainity in the current housing market. What were good intentions towards helping the housing market seem to have backfired ; this needs to be addressed and rectified before further damage is caused and felt.

The consequence of this indecision and speculation has caused the real question to be pushed to the side lines for the time being. Is reducing or freezing stamp duty the answer? This is yet to be seen and no doubt will cause even further speculation and debate.

Finding your next house to make your home used to be the first item on many peoples list in the house buying process though this has certainly changed. It is essential one finds the level of money that you can borrow (’mortgage promise’) prior to your house search, otherwise you could be spending time and effort looking for a house which does not realistically suit your affordability. See this post ‘deciding how much you can borrow and afford’.

So you have been offered a mortgage in principal, how are you going to find the house of your dreams?

The ways in which houses are being marketed is changing and there are now more options than the traditional estate agents who still hold the lions share of the housing buying and selling market. Below are the most popular and current methods of finding your next home which we will look at individually:

• Estate Agencies
• Internet
• Media publications

Estate Agencies

Estate agents are still the most popular method of finding a house and for good reason. They specialise in this field and if they are doing their job well including having a good advertising campaign arranged for their clients;  it can be hard not to come accross their marketed properites.

Small independent estate agents are often prevalent in their areas. This can easily be seen by their branded for sale signs if you are able to drive around the desirable locations you are considering. Once you have found these agents; register an interest with them. With the market moving at a considerably slower pace than in recent times you can confidently rely upon these agents contacting you quickly about properties you maybe interested in.

Larger estate agents can have centralised information sharing and registering of interest systems; though it can often be advantageous to contact the individual offices direct. This enables you to become a real person with a real interest more easily and not an impersonal email enquiry, due to this you may find a better level of service.

Internet

The internet has become a great resource for finding a property and can quickly help you identify and shortlist properties you wish to view. There has been many online property portals appear over recent times, the most popular becoming household names. Most estate agents have a presence on the internet which often includes a good search facilitiy to narrow your property search down.

There is a relatively new development in the house buying process where for a fee sellers can advertise their properties ‘privately’ themselves on the ‘net’. At present this a small part of the market though has the attraction of reduced fees in comparision to estate agents. Private sales have always been an option though it has never challenged the traditional estate agent route due to the many adverising techniques and sales experience they combine. The private sale listing websites are aggresively promoting their websites with what seems a widespread range of results. It would be interesting to know how much this market has grown since conception.

Media Publications

There is a vast range of media publications where you will find properties adverised and those of interest will largely depend on the type of property you are looking for. These publications include glossy magazines, national and local newspapers, weekly specific property sales papers to name but a few.

Local newspaper inserts and adverts continue to be highly valued by most in their search to buy or sell their properties. By looking through local papers a good judgement and idea of the local market can be gained.

To find your new home, this search can be dramatically shorten by combining the methods  mentioned above. We hope that they have provided a useful insight.

We would welcome any comments and stories regarding unusual property finding experiences.

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.

By law the Home Information Pack must be commisioned prior to the marketing of the property. This should be done by the individual home seller or the estate agent acting on behalf of the home seller. At present the HIP pack needs to have been ordered, with this confirmed  marketing can commence whilst the HIP is compiled. This exception is under review and will probably be removed in December meaning that the Home Information Pack would need to be in place as per the Home Information Pack regulations before marketing would legally be allowed to start.

HIP-Consultant.co.uk would welcome this exception being removed. This ‘tweaked’ legislation has given room for it to be abused and the benefits of the HIP pack to home sellers and buyers affected. HIP-Consultant.co.uk currently complete HIPS, on average within six working days, delivering direct to the client, estate agent or both.

The BBC reports (the following is an excerpt):

However, in the current troubled housing market, it seems some estate agents are not commissioning Hips when the property goes on the market, something which by law they are supposed to do.

According to Paul Marsh, president of the Law Society, the practice is common across England and Wales.

“The evidence we’re receiving from right across the country, be it Cornwall, London or the North East England, is that solicitors are not receiving a Hip when the deal is struck.”

“You would have expected that the Hip would be available immediately the agreement [to accept an offer] is reached.

“We’re not getting a Hip until three to four weeks later, sometimes not until exchange of contracts.”

Action is now being considered by trading standards; it is important to remember that potentially a fine of £200 per day can be applied for marketing of a property without following the Home Information Pack legislation.

It appears that the delay in solicitors receiving the HIP could be a direct result of the agents in question only commisioning the Home Information Pack once the property has received a confirmed offer and then supplying to the clients solicitor once received; which negates the benefit of the HIP speeding up the process.

If the legislation is followed there is no reason why the HIP pack can not be transferred to the solicitor almost immediately; HIP-Consultant.co.uk can do this easily and efficiently as we store and deliver the components electronically as standard.

HIPS are far from ‘dead’ as some organisations would like you to believe. The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) have consistently been against Home Information Packs since their introduction and would like to see them removed from the process. The Conservatives continue to use HIPS as a ‘political football’ with no viable alternative suggestions in how they would address the issues within the housing market that HIPS, if correctly applied are helping improve.

HIPS are developing, progressing and providing benefits to the house buying and selling process. Just this week it has been announced that a Property Information Questionaire (P.I.Q.) will be included in the future which will add further benefit to the packs current usefulness.

The Home Information Pack continues to have it’s critics and those resistant to allowing the HIP achieving the improvements it was designed to make. There are rogue elements within most industries and these reports do nothing to help improve the reputations of ‘estate agents’ in general. It is hard not to see this as a shame particularly for those that HIP-Consultant.co.uk work with, whom take meeting their legal obligations seriously.

Over the next few weeks HIP-Consultant.co.uk will be compiling our guide to buying your next home.

There are many guides to buying a home that have been written though as we are all well aware the market is not as buoyant as it has been in recent times. Often these guides have been written in a manner which reflected a bullish housing market; some areas are now not as relevant and also there are new aspects to be considered with the high reductions in number of houses currently being sold.

Our house buying guide will include the following areas; when completed the bullet points will be updated with links to each section to formulate the ‘complete guide’.

• Deciding how much you can really afford and formulating your level of borrowing
• Finding your next home
• Deciding on a house
• Making your offer
• When your offer has been accepted
• The conveyancing and legal work of buying your property

We look forward to publishing each article and if you feel there any other areas that we should consider let us know.

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.

Some of the headlines connected with HIPS over the past year have been at times pure fantasy and showed little grasp of the contents within the packs and the true effects they are having within the housing market. Do we truly believe providing information at the start of the house selling process rather once an offer is accepted at an average cost of £350 can affect the housing market in the way we are experiencing at present.

Lets remember; currently the only additional required document in the Home Information Pack is the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) with the remainder of the pack being made up of the searches, details of title, lease, index and a sales statement that would of had to be done by the property lawyer. The main difference is that we now have this information in place at the beginning of the transaction which enables us to have a better insight into the property in question and allows a more informed decisions in whether to make an offer. Our homes are in most cases the biggest purchase of our life, what other item do you purchase or make an offer on without any information? This is what we would return to doing without the HIP.

With the implementation of HIPs we have seen positive impacts being made including:

• Reduced transaction times - Connell’s solicitors have reported by an average of 12 days
• Less people testing the market with no real intentions of selling
• Lowered search costs and speeded up response times of these providers
• Information lessening the chance of a nasty suprise at the last minute preventing the sale completing

The average cost of £350 per HIP is generally asked for as an upfront payment by most providers. HIP-Consultant.co.uk can offer substantial reductions on the average cost and now also able to offer a 9 months deffered payment option, please feel free to contact us for further information.

HIP-Consultant.co.uk continue to see the benefits to the housing market as do many professional organisations involved with the process. We believe that there are areas that could be improved as with most things and we are actively involved in highlighting and addressing these areas.

The Uk property market has a solid base with Home Information Packs (HIPS) in providing information to the home buyer, now is the time for this to evolve further and add to its offering and reap further benefits.

Where is the UK mortgage market at present and where is this financial market heading? The reports in the press now detail many bad news stories for the housing market and that the mortgage sector is going through what must feel like to many as a dramatic re-assessment of it practices and lending procedures.

As many as 23,000 home owners whom have taken out 100% mortgages since March this year face a negative equity situation at present. However, this only totals 5% of mortgages accepted in this same period. The information from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) comes as figures from within the industry support the fact that the housing market is slowing down further.

HIP-Consultant.co.uk deal with many estate agents and home sellers through providing our Home Information Packs solution. It is common place that agents are only selling about a third of the levels they have become accustomed to. It seems inevitable many estate agents will close or consolidate their positions due to the challenging conditions.

First time buyers are struggling to secure a mortgage; often even with a previously considered good amount as a deposit. Many first time buyers are seeing the part-buy, part-rent as one of the most viable remaining options as the UK’s desire to own their dream home certainly does not seem to have diminished any to date. These arrangements often result in the buyer owning a 25-50% stake in the property and making payments towards a mortgage and rent per month.

Yes, it certainly is harder to obtain a mortgage and it does not seem to be considered it will relax over coming months. However, houses prices falling is this such a bad thing when most are considering moving to larger more expensive properties myself included? No, is the reality in this scenario and this fact seems to be missed by many. But how?

When this is considered we must remeber that our houses are largely our homes and not solely investments. Lets take our average couple or small family that wants to upgrade from a 2 bed to a 3 bed property and for arguments sake each are valued at £150,000 and £200,000 respectively.; the cost to upgrade is £50k. The market continues to fall;we are now into the eigth consectutive month of falling house prices. For arguments sake the prices fall a total of 15%; the 2 bed is now valued at £127,000 and the 3 bed £170,000 making the cost to change now £42,500. So in this scenario you would of ineffect have saved £7,500.

So what are the characteristics of the mortgage market we are likely to see in the future? It is inevitable with the current credit crunch that lending is becoming and will continue to be much more frugal with risk being analysed to a greater extent as many feel it should of been prior.

• Reduced loan to earnings ratios
• 100% mortgages being resigned to the history books
• Action being taken earlier in regard to missed mortgage payments

The mortgage market has for years been a profitable undertaking for the lending institutions many believing it was a no lose market. Now is the time that this is reassessed and more responsible lending returns. This may seem harsh to some who will struggle to obtain a mortgage when comparing this to previous terms and banks’ attitudes towards mortgages. However, with these ‘old fashioned’ values being re-instated comes increased long term relative stability and security for those accepted for mortgages.

Energy prices continue to rise and there seems to be no signs of them slowing. Channel 4 News recently reported that an independent report commisioned by Centrica shows that gas prices are set to rise 70% from current costs.

Is this yet another catalyst for consumers to further look at how they utilise their gas and electric supplies to their properties?

Energy prices have surged since Feburary of 2007 and all the customers of the major players British Gas, Npower, EDF, Scottish Power, Scottish and Southern Energy and E.On have had to support big increases in fuel prices.

Certainly at present many households are feeling the ‘credit crunch’ and are often looking at making cost savings that they can make within their current lifestyles . Energy saving and efficiency is becoming a higher priority amongst many; not only looking to compare energy prices within the market place but how they can become more efficient and ultimately use less energy.

So how do we use less and cut our bills?

• change your behaviour
• upgrade appliances and install energy saving/efficient products.
• changing supplier

Simple behaviour changes can be made and it can be suprising at the savings that can be made with all or a combination of the following and obviosuly this list is not exhaustive:

• Turn your thermostat down. Reducing your room temperature by 1 degree °C could cut your heating bills by up to 10 percent. You could save around £40 per year.
• Is your water too hot? Your cylinder thermostat shouldn’t need to be set higher than 60°C/140°F. A good measure of this is if the water is too hot to hold your hand under, turn the temperature down
• Close your curtains at dusk to stop heat escaping through the windows, incidentally, this is also reccomended as a security measure.
• Turn off your lights when you leave a room.
• Don’t leave appliances on standby and remember not to leave appliances on charge unnecessarily.
• If you’re not filling up the washing machine, tumble dryer or dishwasher, use the half-load or economy programme.
• Only boil as much water as you need to (but remember to cover the elements if you’re using an electric kettle).
• A dripping hot water tap wastes energy and in one week wastes enough hot water to fill half a bath, so fix leaking taps and make sure they’re fully turned off!
• Use energy saving light bulbs. Just one can save you £60 over the lifetime of the bulb - as they last up to 10 times longer than ordinary lightbulbs.

Please feel free to add your tips or behaviour changes you have made within the comments below.

The Energy Performance Certificate does not include or make reccomended related behaviour changes to the benefit of your energy efficiency and focuses on reccomendations based upon your properties’ current attributes. More information about the domestic energy assessment can be found within our guide.

It is of interest that the government actually officially reccommends changing suppliers to cheaper ones and there have been many organisations and companies formed to compare such prices. Millions of households have already switched suppliers and this will continue in search of reduced costs.

As the issue of rapidly increasing energy prices becomes ever so more costly to the public, now is the time to address not one but all of the points we have spoken about. It is a multi faceted solution if you choose to reduce your energy consumption and ultimately your monthly gas and electric bills.

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.

Within the report which makes 30 recommendations; it criticises the system of voluntary regulation in the residential property sector for being inadequate and some aspects of the report claims that the introduction of Home Information Packs (HIPs) has not provided the improvements to the home buying process that were intended.

This is contrary to Connell’s solicitors research amongst others, who have stated the positive impact HIPS are having. Ross Bowen, director of their Survey and Valuation department recently said “We recently conducted some research revealing that HIPs have speeded up the time between instruction to sell a property and the exchange of contracts by an average of twelve days.”

Sir Bryan Carsberg, is in agreement with the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) who believes that HIPs should be made voluntary. Both believe that individual house sellers should decide on whether or not to commission a HIP pack to market their property with. This should come as no surprise as the NAEA have been consistently opposed to the Home Information Packs (HIPs) legislation. It would be of interested to poll individual NAEA members to find out their views nearly a year down the line since HIPS came into place; as many agents now see them as another revenue stream. This is obviously appreciated by many agents in the present housing market as many are currently going out of business.

The reports research found that the average cost of a Home Information Packs (HIPs) is around £350.

Sir Bryan Carsberg is well aware of the impact to the planned compulsory Home Condition Report (HCR) being made voluntary had; little or no uptake and this would surely be the case for the HIP too. HIP-Consultant.co.uk feel that if the introduction of Home Information Packs becoming voluntary was introduced it would cause the packs resignation to the tried and failed pile.

Would it not be better to develop the packs current benefits further overtime and use the existing structure as a solid base to move forward from?

Are we expected to return to making offers on properties which are in most cases the biggest purchases of our lives with little or no information? To then find out twelve weeks down the line that there is a problem which could have been identified within the Home Information Pack at the start.

After all, currently the only additional required item in the Home Information Pack is the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), which in our experience has been widely welcomed by the public. The remainder of the pack is made up of the searches, details of title, lease, etc that would of had to be done by the property lawyer. The main difference now is that we have this information there at the beginning of the transaction.

The HIP provides the buyer with a good informative description of the property prior to making an offer. With the HIP pack in place it means that once there is an agreed sale the process to exchange can be a much quicker process.

HIP-Consultant.co.uk has develop its services and areas we can provide Home Infomation Packs (HIPS) over a relatively short period. This expansion has been carried out gradually to ensure the continuity of quality remains; and that we do not fall foul of sacrificing customer service which has been key to the high level of customer satisfaction we have achieved.

HIP-Consultant.co.uk receive enquiries on almost a daily basis from current or potential domestic energy assessors (DEA) as I am sure other organisation will do. The discussion within the industry continues to be one of concern in regard to the current and rising number of DEAs; concerns which HIP-Consultant.co.uk mirror. The question which is inevitably asked by prospective DEAs is ‘should I train as a domestic energy assessor?‘
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The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) makes recommendations and this is becoming more widely familiar as the EPBD legislation is becoming further understood and implemented. HIP-Consultant.co.uk welcomes the national EPC awareness campaign that is currently running and feel this can only help promote the significance and importance of the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC).

Once the Domestic Energy Assessment has taken place and the Energy Performance Certificate has been issued, for example within the Home Information Pack (HIP); the EPC recommendations are being looked at by the new owners of the related property and are increasingly making improvements based upon this section of the EPC.

Please click image to enlarge.

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