Helpful Hints for a Sucessful Move in a New HIP Environment
4th April 2007
29th March saw the Government announce its final plans for the introduction of Home Information Packs (HIPs).
Packs become compulsory for almost all sales of residential property in England and Wales from the 1st June 2007.
The packs will certainly add to the cost of moving house by as much as £500 but, with proper planning, they should not delay the time it takes to get a property on the market, for sale.
The pack needs very basic information including proof of ownership (available on-line from the Land Registry), whether the property is leasehold or freehold, sellers name, information that a local search has been applied for and an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC).
The obligation to order a local search as the property comes onto the market means that the property will have a local search available for buyers within 2–4 weeks in normal circumstances. It may well help to speed up the house selling process as delays in buyers applying for local searches when they have agreed to purchase a property quite often delays legal completion by several weeks.
The biggest uncertainty will certainly be the availability of Pack providers to provide Energy Performance Certificates. These are to be produced by Domestic Energy Assessors and will give information on insulation qualities of the property and a CO2 rating on the property’s ‘green’ credentials.
From the 1st June onwards sellers of property will have to ensure that there chosen estate agent can give assurances about every area of the Energy Performance Certificate.
To ensure that clients of Manning Stainton are not disadvantaged Manning Stainton will have 10 qualified Domestic Energy Assessors employed by mid May.
It is not felt that the Energy Efficiency rating of a property will have any great bearing on saleability or value but will be a useful pointer to buyers as to improvements they could make to levels of insulation.
Perhaps the most significant change to the dynamics of the housing market lie in the fact that it is very likely that the ‘no sale – no charge’ era will end and sellers will be faced with a bill from their pack provider even if they do not sell their property.
This will make the initial choice of estate agent even more critical than it is at present.
A rapid increase in the number of properties coming onto the market, ahead of the June deadline, has already been seen but at a time when there is a general shortage of property it is not felt that this will have any adverse effect on the market or prices. Any re-adjustment will be short lived as it is likely that the number of new properties coming available for sale in the Summer months will be below average.
Our advice to people contemplating a move in 2007 is to plan ahead and be pro-active. Whilst the HIP provides the basic minimum standards home owners will be able to put together further information such as double glazing guarantees, copies of planning permissions, central heating service records, etc, to pass on to their Solicitors in order to provide their buyers with as much information as possible very early in the transaction thereby aiding a smooth sale.
David Pank
Sales & Marketing Director
