HIP's were set up to aid buyers by affording them more transparency. In theory this is a good idea sellers have been known to try to palm off any old rubbish to unsusspecting buyers.
But what benefit is it to the other half of all those involved in the UK residential property market. Sellers!
In fact to date what benefit has it had for buyers.
I work in an EA office that has not yet received one single request from a buyer to look at the HIP prior to making an offer!
For sellers it is an administrive burden that at present is simply a pain but after June it will be a real problem. After June if you are out looking for your dream house without yours being on the market and believe me at present that is around half of all those viewing property. You will be at a distint disadvantage if you find the house you want to buy why? because you will not be allowed by this Government to sell your house to raise the cash to buy aforementioned dream house!!! for a period of at least a week and as many are finding two to three weeks
IF THE HIP AIN'T READY YOU CAN'T MOVE!
The reality will be you will lose your dream house to someone who is further up the que to you!
Now another problem with the UK housing market is buyers
They do not need to commit until exchange of contracts so all involved have to wait on baited breath for a period of 8 to 12 weeks hoping they don't simply change their minds.
We need to have the French system where the buyer is committed after 7 days and loses their 10% deposit if they pull out thereafter (subject only to a bad survey)
This meddling Government should have looked at the big picture and should have considered the agony vendors go through whilst waiting on the whims of some idiot buyers

Struggling to sell properties Immy?

Have you started reccommending that sellers drop their prices yet like you did on here back in 2005?

Having just sold and bought a property I can confirm that HIP's served absolutely no useful purpose whatsover in the process so therefore I must conclude it was just another interfering meddling Government/EU initiative in something they know nothing about and just a stealth tax by another name.
Mel.

quote:

just sold and bought a property I can confirm that HIP's served absolutely no useful purpose whatsover in the process so therefore I must conclude it was just another interfering meddling Government/EU initiative in something they know nothing about and just a stealth tax by another name.

Melboy, surely the HIPs would provide a purpose if ALL information required from the buyer, including survey and structural work was inc lused, so that buyers do not have to repeatedly pay for them? But funny old thing, they do. If they came up with a scheme whereby the buyer and seller pay for half of all survey costs, evaluations etc which would then be accepted by the banks to obtain a mortgage, the whole system would be fairer. A far more standard evaluation set could be created, so you dont have bumfluff bob, straight out of his GCSEs with no other qualifications giving you a best guesstimate of what your property is worth.

But funny old thing, I think RICS would have something to say about all that lost trade. Agree though that the HIP in its current format is useless. Whats to say that it couldnt be converted into something far more useful in the future though, when RICS are caught on a back foot?

We're in the process of buying a 4 bed house. It needs a lot of work so we weren't bothered about the HIP and our solicitor also added that they too just ignore them as they want to conduct their own searches.

However, mainly out of interest, I asked the agent if I could see it, knowing the sellers legally had to have one.

"ah right", said the agent, "I'll print 'some' stuff off and send it to you."

This was followed by a call a while later - "er, actually there's nothing available to give you".

"OK never mind", said I, "but isn't it a legal requirement to have one?", I inquired.

To which the agent's response was , "Er well... no... as long as they've started the process to get one..."


Hmm - what's the story there then ?

Agents right Roger06! It sometimes takes 3 weeks before the HIP is ready and we have sold some properties before it's out!
No matter as no one wants to see it anyway.

We urgently need to double our filing space though as all the HIP's take up alot of room.
with an average hip being nearly a cm thick x the 60 properties we have on add the 60x properties the other 20 agents in my town have x the 60 properties the other 100,000 EA's have in the country then we have an awful lot of paper!
Where does paper come from? Only the rainforests this govt says it is trying to protect with it's new green credentials

Which? have just done a review of HIPS and they were unimpressed for a variety of reasons, saying they quality of the information is very variable and can be positively misleading.

On trainee HIP inspector said "these inspections are clearly not for the benefit of the householder. I have extreme reservations about how it's going to improve anything."

.....and having just sold a property privately (sorry immy ) I didn't need to provide a HIP.... work that one out then!
These HIP's are not worth the paper they are written on yet we still get mealy-mouthed Government Ministers telling us all they are good for us and good for the environment.
What utter clap-trap!
Mel.