The facts are the Home information pack HIPs or home sellers pack, is not wanted, can be legally avoided saving you £700, and is rather useless pretty good so far.
Home information pack can be avoided, as there is no legal definition of a bedroom, therefore no need to comply with HIPs home information pack regulations.
As David Marsden the head of the property department at law firm Matthew Arnold and Baldwin pointed out.
The home Information pack [HIPs] is
From Dec 14, every person selling their home will have to pay up to £700 for a Hip, the Government announced yesterday.
. However what is not required, is the “Home condition report.” [Not recognised by the building societies and lenders]
However the good news is. See Sold with no bedrooms.
Under planning law, it is about whether rooms are habitable, not whether they are bedrooms or not.
So HIPs regulations can be avoided on any size of home by using Rooms..Instead of Bedrooms.
Please make sure that, if you are going to pay for HIPs around £700, that the local searches in your pack are from the Local Authority.
The required HIP documents are: with word and pdf examples.
- Home information index Basically a list of the packs content.
- Energy performance Energy Performance Certificate.
- Sale statement Sale statement.doc
- Evidence of Land registry title example.
- Local and drainage-&-water searches. – A drainage and water search can be requested from your water supplier.
- Additional information for leasehold and commonhold sales, where appropriate.
You can also include a Home contents document in the pack, to layout what is included and whats not.
The HIPs pack needs an Energy certificate, please be careful who you let into your home. Please see Criminal record checks for domestic energy assessors.
Are there any exclusions to the sellers pack?
The following will be exempt from the Home Information Pack regulations:
- Properties smaller than 4 bedrooms
- Properties in Scotland and Northern Ireland
- Private sales where the property is not offered on the open market (eg. to a family member, neighbour, or friend)
- Non-residential property (i.e. shops or mixed commercial)
- Properties sold with sitting tenants and not available for owner occupation
- ‘Right to Buy’ sales by Local Authorities or other social landlords
- Homes held on a lease of less than 21 years
- New homes – no survey required if sold with an NHBC, Zurich, or similar warranty.
Need more help? Contact us. just add a comment on the bottom of the page.
The Basic Home information or sellers pack should cost, if you DIY it no more than around £260 or around £700 max for a commercial pack.
Please see our post on it is Cheaper to pay the HIP fine
If you are being quoted more than this tell us, and we will name and shame…
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Should the pack include a Home Condition Report?
A Home Condition Report is not compulsory and is in fact useless, as mortgage lenders will not accept the report as a survey, and will still require there own..
So do not waste money geting one.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders, having consulted their members, say that “The home condition report won’t be enough in order for people to get a mortgage, because they will be asking for an additional survey” -
The home condition report – a form of mini survey – was in part intended to help mortgage lenders undertake automated valuations, and thus eliminate the need for a physical inspection of the property.
But research by the Council of Mortgage Lenders shows that most lenders still expect to be carrying out their own inspections five years after the introduction of the packs on June 1st 2007.
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However estate agents can charge anything from £600 to £1200, so do not be overcharged, see our estate agents guide.
The cost of a Home Information Pack, including the Home Condition Report, is estimated to be around £600 – £1500 by the Government.
You can of course do it your self, by clicking here, >> Compile home information pack
The Guardian Reports, that to produce a DIY pack is going to cost at least £265.
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Please note. Ask to see the energy inspectors and home inspectors, Criminal record check or CRB form. If they refuse then close the door…
From The Sunday Telegraph One very nervous gentleman did exactly that, but a smile slowly spread across his face when he was assured that his criminal peccadillo would not prevent him “assessing” up to 10 houses a day.
“Looks like I’ll be fine,” he told me. “After all, we’ve all got skeletons in our closet, haven’t we?”
Kind regards
Pete Davies
Home information pack
The home information sellers pack hips which ever way you describe it, is a total disaster.
First if was plugged as helping first time buyers by having all the information up front.
Then we find out that the local searches in the pack are liable to be incorrect they are not from the local authorities.
Plus the energy performance certificate is a bit of a farce and as been pointed out its all one big guess and assumptions.
Now we have these assessors trying to rip us off by charging premiums on 4 bed properties.
Ruth Kelly then goes and states that there is no legal definition of 4 bedroom houses..
So now will have house for sale with plenty of rooms and no bedrooms, so no HIPS.
Its time this whole thing went away quietly.
Karen
Local searches, like anything else, come in many flavours.
I do personal searches in vast numbers, and also spend alot of my time correcting the Councils’ mistakes in their searches. Many, if not most, councils pay peanuts to untrained staff who don’t know or care what they put into a search. Who would think that a council search had mistakes or omissions? We see them all the time.
Whereas me, my staff and a few other search companies, are professionals who stake our business and livelihoods on accurate searches and quality service. Sadly, some search companies, like elements in every industry, are crap. The cheapest is rarely the best deal, and a referral by someone who knows his business is always the best course.
HIPs are a crap idea, full of flaws. Maybe in time they can make them work, this next effort could fail, too.
EPCs may measure carbon, but I thought the sun was responsible for global heating, and increased carbon merely a result of that! Doh!
I wish to know how exactly i can do my own HIPS pack and energy rating.
I am confident with getting the appriate documents.from local authority, but could do my own Energy certificate,if i knew were to get the calculations.
we have new wooden double glazed K Glass windows, the maximum loft insulation, all the correct thermostats on the radiators, cylinder etc etc to save money
Cavity wall insulation, doors sealed round.
thermal underlay with foil(about 1inch thick under carpets)
evrything
energy bulbs.
can anybody help,
Hello G Cooke
Here are a few options
1, Describe your bedrooms as rooms, you are then HIPs pack free.
2. Estate agents are back dating instructions making your hips and Energy rating free
If you want an energy certificate and lets be honest who does, they are rather useless anyway,
Then you have to pay for it.
However go down routes 1 and 2 first