Mike Ockenden, director-general of the Association of Home Information Pack Providers (AHIPP) commented: “The government’s announcement today further reinforces their commitment to making HIPs a success and should act as a catalyst for all in industry to get prepared for 1 June.
“It is good to see government’s recognition of the vital role that HIPs will play in addressing the environmental impact of homes, following the Stern report into climate change.
“Industry should feel reassured that third party company, Mori, has been selected to independently appraise the success of the area trails and we are delighted to announce our own findings that suggests that consumers like packs and that agents are finding them useful when marketing a property.
“Allowing properties to be put on the market, after local searches (and in the case of leasehold properties, leasehold documents) have been ordered, but not necessarily delivered, will eliminate any initial hold ups regarding the marketing of the property in the preliminary stages of implementation. The six month period, prior to the reviewing of these arrangements will allow time for the issuing of government’s new guidance, allowing them to work with local authorities and the private sector towards delivering a new, more efficient and cost effective search service.
“This should also allow time for the Home Condition Report (HCR), if commissioned by the consumer, to be assessed and will underline the vital role of the HCR, eventually leading to its reinstatement as a mandatory element of the pack.
“Agents who have previously opposed the packs should be reassured by this statement that there is no intention to slow down the marketing of a property. We must now all work together to get the necessary processes in place to ensure that consumers receive the best possible service and that they get to experience the true benefits from this much needed reform.”
Nick Salmon, head of the SPLINTA campaign and commercial director of Harrison Murray estate agents, said: "We welcome the fact that DCLG has finally begun to come to terms with the realities of the market but we remain of the opinion that sellers and agents should be allowed to begin marketing a property whilst the HIP is prepared. A HIP is going to cost sellers about £500 on average and there is a real possibility of disruption to the market because many people will be put off from testing the market if they have to face that cost. The market is already fragile from recent interest rate rises and the HIP could tip it in to disaster."
Salmon also criticised the DCLG for breaking government guidelines on consultation documents: "The best practice guidelines say that consultations should last for a minimum of 12 weeks but in this instance we are only being given four weeks to respond. It shows how desperate the government is to hit its self-imposed deadline of 1 June - regardless of the consequences."
Alex Fraser, chief executive of C-NLIS, said: “We support the government’s commitment to improving the efficiency of the property search market. C-NLIS works with local authorities in three key areas – pricing, performance and standardisation to eliminate the postcode lottery. We are pleased that the government acknowledges the significant progress already made by a large number of authorities.
“Our key objective is to provide electronic access to official data which will benefit local authorities, private search firms and ultimately the consumer. We welcome the support for standards as we are seeking to create a code of practice that will bring together public and private sector search providers.”
Peter Ambrose, director of The Partnership expects that estate agents will be pleased by this announcement: "During our discussions with agents, we regularly found that one of their main concerns was the potential impact of having to wait for all the documents to be available before the property was marketed. With our legal experience, we were always concerned about the time that local authority and drainage searches would take to be returned. We recognised this would mean that agents would be marketing with incomplete HIPs and would have to wait for the 14 day period to expire, creating a somewhat artificial situation which was difficult to justify.
"We are extremely encouraged to see that the government has listened to the concerns of industry and feedback from their area trials and introduced this measure. The trials were always designed to test the processes and this change shows they are working as planned."
