Helping Innovate Property (HIP) – Blog, Housing Market News and Articles

Many landlords have an issue with getting the right type of tenants.  Quite naturally, Landlords want tenants who will pay on time, take good care of the property, and keep open lines of communication with both the letting agent and the landlord.

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A right over a piece of land for the benefit of another piece of land, such as a right of way or a right to use services running under the land is called an “easement”. The land which benefits from an easement is called the “dominant tenement” or “dominant land” and the land which is subject to the easement is the “servient tenement” or “servient land”. There are several ways in which an easement can be created and once it exists then subject to certain exceptions, it exists for all time for the benefit of the dominant land.

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After a tough couple of years for the UK property sales market, it has been reported healthy figures so far for 2010. They are seeing residential properties for sale remain on a steady footing and in some cases even return to peak levels last seen in 2007 which results in a confident outlook for the rest of the year.

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Ever since it became commonplace for the ordinary men and women on the street to own their homes many law firms have seized on this huge market and placed great emphasis on their conveyancing departments. The resulting competition for work means that it is now possible to pay as little as £200 in legal fees and indeed, to pay nothing at all if the proposed sale or purchase never proceeds to completion.

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Grant Shapps would have hoped that the contentious issue of Home Information Packs would have quietly slipped away into the background. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Yesterday, both Hywel Williams MP and the Institute of Domestic Energy Assessors slammed the coalition governments handling of the HIP suspension.

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In 1999 a father and son were so frustrated with the delays from local councils in providing local searches to enable them to buy a house they went to the council and searched the records to produce their own search. Realising there was a business potential there the father and son contact a couple of solicitor friends and with their help started a personal search company.

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We would like to take the opportunity to thank all our past Home Information Pack clients. It has been rewarding helping you to speedier transaction times, smoother exchanges, … STOP IT,  its gone.

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Until today, home sellers had to have a Home Information Pack in place before their home could be put on the market.  HIPs have now been suspended, pending primary legislation for a permanent abolition.  Before the election, the Conservative Party promised a consultation on their complete removal, but this isn’t mentioned in the official announcement.

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Eric Pickles has finally granted Mr Shapps’s long held desire to suspend HIPs this morning, though it remains unclear on what basis. Grant Shapps who has increasing appeared to be on personal crusade to scrap HIPs has seemingly suceeded and issued a statement shortly afterwards.

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Despite recent rumours and ill informed articles to the contrary, it is still ‘business as usual’ in the HIP industry – for now at least. Since the new Government confirmed that they planned to scrap HIPs whilst retaining the Energy Performance Certificate (they have no choice in this – it’s required by European Directive), there has been constant talk about if and when the requirement for a Home Information Pack will be abolished.

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In our latest article in a series de-mystifying property conveyancing we focus on the Land Registry system and how property and land is registered.

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