Comments on: Hips To Be Scrapped Under Tories

By: Chris Callaways

Chris Callaways — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:22:54 +0000

I think the abolishment of HIP’s will spark a new wave of sellers, HIP’s are just one of those things that are a slight barrier or pest sellers have during the first steps of when contemplating selling their home, removing HIP’s makes the path to sale easier.

By: BEN

BEN — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:30:05 +0000

I do hope you keep your promise and scrap the HIPS. This will kick start the housing market again and let the solicitors get on with their jobs whilst cutting out duplication.
Please make a statement confirming this during your election walk abouts in the next couple of weeks. My wife and I are staunch conservatives and sure this will gain us many more votes. Keep the pressure on and we can win.

Regards

Ben and Margaret Stocker

By: Paul Reeves

Paul Reeves — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:34:21 +0000

A point to consider is that if you are buying a property and require a mortgage, then the lender is going to insist that a Basic valuation is carried out as a minimum regardless of a HIP. The HIP mostly contains information that your legal team will find out anyway during the course of their conveyancing work, but I suppose it’s nice to have it up front and to know some other information.

When buying a home it’s important to know about the 3 types of survey available – a basic valuation, a home buyers report and a full structural survey. It’s the buyers responsibility to check exactly what they are buying and unfortunately a HIP will not contain details of whether the property has been underpinned or other structural works have been carried out.

HIPs are more like a prospectus, an introduction if you like, they contain some nice facts, but at the end of the day, if you really want to know what you are about to buy, you need a good surveyor and a good conveyancing firm!!

By: gary

gary — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:03:07 +0000

Feedback I got from a lady I know…

Lady (in response to this news): so they focus on getting the housing bubble started again? Does any party have any clue in the UK about what matters?

Me: HIPs are pointless red tape, whether you’re a buyer or seller removing HIPs must be a good thing?

Lady: Considering how much things hidden about our house caused us grief, i am not so sure

Me: Isn’t that was surveys are for? HIPs wouldn’t disclose that much detailed information

Lady: The hip made the survey a responsibility of the seller, and came with liabilities on things covered or missed or at the very least it gave a framework for it. We should have sued our bank appointed “gold” surveyor but who does that? The industry was against the HIP because it removed lucrative duplication from the process whats sad is that once again the election will be around unimportant cosmetic points, cheap wins. Booze prices are next In our case HIPs might not have helped except the side aspects of the system which clarify liability – and speed. The speed: it takes so long to do checks and lookups – HIP means all this is done upfront. No surprises. No duplication.

She has some good points

By: Paul Reeves

Paul Reeves — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:31:12 +0000

There are many options regarding arranging a HIP, but as Zoe rightly says they are compulsory and have been since April this year. The main exception being if there is no marketing done – there are other exceptions, but not for the mass market. Oh and don’t forget the Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ) – a recent bolt on / addendum to the HIP. I’m not sure if they will be entirely scrapped or just branded as something else, a kind of ‘HIP Replacement’, and we have all heard about the waiting times and recovery periods for them!! Lets hope not, eh?

By: Zoe Piper

Zoe Piper — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:12:30 +0000

@Simon Typically they cost around £160-£200, depending on what sort of property you have and what documents are included in the HIP (some are compulsory and some aren’t). To make it even more confusing, estate agents add their own fee to the cost of the HIP so some homeowners end up paying far too much for them (the Financial Times reported not long ago that some estate agents were charging up to £450 for them!).

I don’t think it was really a tax, just a really expensive bit of red tape. The thing is, you now HAVE to have a HIP before you market your property, so there’s no way around it!

By: Jim Sefton

Jim Sefton — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:17:14 +0000

Indeed, finally someone speaking sense at last. One more failed policy from a failed government.

By: Ant Chippendale

Ant Chippendale — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:04:45 +0000

Definitely a good plan!

By: Simon Barker

Simon Barker — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:36:38 +0000

I always thought they sounded like a pointless admin to me (not that I’ve ever looked at them or had to deal with them) – how much do they typically add onto the cost of buying/selling? And who gets the money from that? Was that just another stealth tax?