Home Information Packs
Home Information Packs
Keywords: Housing, Mortgage companies, Surveys
ODPM has also responded by saying that HIPs will cost between £600 and£700 plus VAT for an average family home. These are not additional costs and the costs will be transferred from buyers to sellers. The intention to include an energy survey in the pack was clearly signaled in 1998, three years before the EU directive.
The Housing Act 2004 provides that the fixed penalty specified in the regulations for marketing a property without a HIP may not exceed £500. The draft regulations propose a £200 fixed penalty. The enforcement regime for HIPs is based on civil sanctions. The HIP documents will add up to just over 50 sides of paper for the registered sale of a freehold property. In many case the packs will be electronic. HIPs will create a more efficient and cost-effective market where costs will be more fairly shared between buyer and seller. A search for whether a property is on a local authority’s contaminated land register, maintained under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, will be a required part of the HIP. Banks and building societies will still need to conduct their own valuations, even after the introduction of home information packs, lenders have warned in a new report. Meanwhile the Council of Mortgage Lenders has expressed its concerns that most properties will still need a valuation inspection when the HIP packs go live. However it says that if the home condition reports, which will form part of the packs, prove to be “robust and easily accessible”, fewer physical valuations may be needed.
