More doubts about HIPs

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has joined the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) in calling for the postponement of mandatory home information packs (HIPs).

RICS spokesman, Jeremy Leaf, said: “Home buying reform yes! But, implementation proposals are potentially detrimental to the market and the interest of consumers and the wider economy, that we have little choice but to call for a postponement.

“This would provide the opportunity to look at home buying reform in the round, which we have been urging the government to do for some time. We believe that it is time to sweep up all the problems with home buying and selling rather than focus on the depleted home information pack which has most of the stuffing removed.”

RICS has offered a number of solutions to the government as part of its consultation response and is working with other government departments and colleagues in industry to deliver real benefits for consumers.

And the Council for the National Land & Property Information Service (C-NLIS), the government backed organisation which was set up to support local authorities and other property information holders in England and Wales in their move from manual to electronic provision of property information services, has also expressed concern.

Alex Fraser, chief executive of CNLIS, said: “C-NLIS supports the view expressed by the CML that local authorities are not fully prepared to meet the new challenges presented by the introduction of home information packs. Whilst the turnaround times of local authorities’ own official searches have reduced dramatically over the last 12 months, many authorities do not have the resource to provide unfettered access for personal searches.

“We have for some time warned government that the huge increases in volumes of personal searches which will inevitably result from the introduction of HIPs, will lead to meltdown in some authorities who simply will not be able to cope. We remain sceptical that the transitional period announced in January will provide sufficient time to implement the necessary changes.”

Not surprisingly, the Association of Home Information Pack Providers (AHIPP) thinks there is no real problem. Mike Ockenden, director general of AHIPP, said: “To our minds the CML has not got its act together and if they wish to see proof that both the public and industry have embraced HIPs during our initial dry run we would happily share this information with them.

“There is sufficient evidence to suggest that HIPs will work and while there is room for improvement in speeding up local authority searches, an issue government is addressing, we see no reason why there should be any delay in their implementation.”