Estate Agents – Damned if you do and if you don’t

February 22nd, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Home Information Packs, Property Conveyancing, Property Market 6 Comments »

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has carried out a year long investigation into standards in the industry and reported largely positive findings, which has surprisingly been responded to with negative comments from the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA)? Estate Agents have picked up an unenviable reputation over time which has stuck with them for sure but is it really still justified?

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Interview with Brian Scannell of NHER – part 2

February 10th, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Energy Assessors, Energy Saving, EPC, Home Information Packs, Interviews 4 Comments »

Brian Scannell of NHER and managing director of National Energy Services (NES) Ltd continues with further thoughts towards our questions in part 2 of the interview.

Q10 Do you support the current HIP legislation and if it was ‘scrapped’ what impact do you envisage it will have on your members?

I certainly support the original aspirations of the HIP – ensuring that reliable information on a property was available at the time of marketing. It is an absolute tragedy that the most directly beneficial component to consumers – the Home Condition Report – was made voluntary and, to all intents and purposes, killed.

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Details of Non-Compliant Local Authority Searches to be removed

February 2nd, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Home Information Packs, Local Authority Searches 1 Comment »

The Association of Independent Personal Search Agents (IPSA) have indicated that later today they will remove the non-Home Information Pack compliant Local Authority list from its public web site.

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Property Codes Compliance Board independent assessment results

February 2nd, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Home Information Packs, Local Authority Searches, Property Conveyancing 6 Comments »

The Association of Independent Personal Search Agents (IPSA) has welcomed the findings of the Property Codes Compliance Board (PCCB) independent assessment into personal searches, but issued a warning to property professionals.

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Online estate agency – cure or virus for property professionals?

January 20th, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Property Conveyancing, Property Market, Property Portals Comments Off on Online estate agency – cure or virus for property professionals?

Online estate agency is growing by the day and 2010 seems as if it could well be the year of sale by property owner websites. These property portals have been set up for owners to sell their own properties by missing out the estate agent. They are selling their services with claims of 0% commision and 0% fees.

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CLG assess cheap EPC providers and accreditation schemes

January 11th, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Energy Assessors, EPC, Property Conveyancing 8 Comments »

The Communities and Local Government (CLG) have sent a ‘shock’ letter to the accreditation schemes who oversee and monitor the quality of the Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs).

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Proposal for Reform to the Home Selling & Buying Process

January 5th, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in EPC, Home Information Packs, Property Conveyancing 3 Comments »

A New and Innovative Proposal for Reform to the Home Selling and Buying Process. The HIP Reform Group, established in November 2009, and now boasting a membership of over 670 supporters, has this week released a ‘white paper’ containing a proposal for reform entitled – ‘New Year, New Start’.

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Conservatives to consult on Home Information Packs (HIPs)

December 21st, 2009 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Home Information Packs, News 8 Comments »

Grant Shapps MP office contacted us after a recent article ‘Conservative Home Information Pack policy to stall property market?’ where we posed a few questions. Grant Shapps office offered to provide answers to these questions, which we were pleased to accept.

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Grant Shapps cuts HIP red tape and reveals … err… ??

December 17th, 2009 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Home Information Packs, News, Property Conveyancing 6 Comments »

The Conservative HIP policy is being criticised by a number of industry professionals at present and quite ironically from both Pro-HIP and Anti-HIP supporters. The common ground which is uniting these two groups is ambiguity, uncertainty and lack of clarity from Mr Grant Shapps on his intentions and implementation plans if they were to win the next election.

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HIP Reform Group Launched

December 11th, 2009 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Home Information Packs, News 1 Comment »

David Pett has started a pro-HIP organisation named the HIP Reform Group which has been recently promoted to many DEAs, HIP providers and industry professionals.

What made you establish the HIP Reform Group?

David Pett stated,

“I took this action as I became frustrated by the political spin and half truths emanating from the Conservative Party and how I feel the end user i.e. the consumer is being misled.

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Conservative Home Information Pack policy to stall property market?

December 3rd, 2009 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Home Information Packs, Property Conveyancing, Property Market 10 Comments »

Grant Shapps has re-iterated his and the Conservative’s plans to scrap Home Information Packs HIPs; yet again over the last few days. However, yet again he has not detailed any planned phase out or replacement of the HIP.

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