Estate agency industry still unhappy with HIPs
May 3, 2008
Since they came into force last year Home Information Packs have proven very unpopular with certain industry sectors, particularly the estate agency sector, which has claimed that the packs are costly, time consuming, and ineffective. The government introduced HIPs last summer, but they only became compulsory on all residential properties being marketed for sale in England and Wales in December of last year due to a number of unforeseen delays.
There are various targets that are in place in relation to HIPs in terms of production times and cost, and official from the estate agency industry claim that these targets simply aren’t being met most of the time. The target timescale for production of a HIP is four to five working days, but according to some officials the packs are taking around twelve days to produce in over 50% of cases, and over fifteen days in around 30% of cases, with just one in eight being produced within target.
The target average cost of HIPs is around £350 but officials have said that many are costing in excess of £500, making them very costly as well as time consuming. However, speaking in favour of HIPs one official from the Communities and Local Government Department said: ‘The average cost of a HIP is between £300 and £350 which, apart from the energy performance certificate, is already part of the buying and selling process. The most authoritative analysis of HIPs found 72% of consumers were satisfied with them.’
Officials from the Conservative Party have always expressed concern over HIPs, branding them a costly waste of time and making it clear that they would be scrapped if the Tories get back into power.
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