Home information packs become law on December 14th. There is no obligation on sellers to buy a pack from an estate agent or a solicitor. You can produce your own for around £325 and save hundreds of pounds.
However with no legal definition of a bedroom, there is no need to comply with HIP regulations, as David Marsden the head of the property department at law firm Matthew Arnold and Baldwin pointed out.
He said: “Under planning law, it is about whether rooms are habitable, not whether they are bedrooms or not.”
Therefore call your bedrooms, rooms you are HIPs and EPC free.
The law says that the person marketing a property, be it an estate agent or the owner, must have a copy of the pack in their possession while the property is on the market, and must give a copy to potential buyers within 14 days of a request.
- Provided you think they can afford it, if not then do not have to give them the pack
- A private sale does not require a pack..
The required 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 in the home sale and whats not. eg Carpets light fittings ect.
_________________________________________________
The main cost is the energy performance certificate, which must be carried out by a qualified inspector and will cost at least £80 to £90.
The Land Registry (landregistry.gov.uk) will supply evidence of title for £6 and the title plan, again £6. After that, costs vary according to each local authority.
The Department of Communities and Local Government says the searches that the pack must include are the local land charges register (form LLC1) and the answers to “local enquiries”.
This looks rather cheap – often just £10-£15. But the extra cost is form con29, which the local authority will compile for you at a cost of £150 or more. Some councils (such as the London borough of Barnet) charge as much as £288.
- One way around this is to employ a specialist company to carry out the work. There are several of these available over the internet, with prices starting at around £70.
A drainage and water search is also required. Contact your local water company for costs. As an example, Thames Water charges £44.18 for a residential search, delivered within three days.
Altogether, a DIY pack is therefore going to cost at least £225 – half as much as a commercially-produced Hip.
[...] diy hip will cost around [...]