May 2010
Thursday, 20 May 2010
HIP's finally bite the dust
The demise of home information packs has been welcomed by the National Association of Estate Agents, The Law Society and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. So one might ask why these professional bodies weren’t asked their opinion before the HIP’s debacle and the answer is that they were asked, but their contributions to the consultation were largely ignored.
The new coalition government has, however, decided to continue with energy performance certificates for residential properties sold in the
Although most estate agents will have a great deal of sympathy with the thousands of people who qualified themselves to prepare these packs it doesn’t change the fact that these people were providing a service that increased the cost of sale at a point in the cycle when the market was at it’s most stressed. Many of these people will, I hope, continue to find gainful employment producing energy performance certificates instead.
Since the suspending of HIP’s we have seen a welcome return to the market of the speculative seller which has increased the number of properties on our books.