Another week, another HIPs fiasco
By Damian Clarkson 24th
August 2007
Home Information Packs (HIPs) have been steeped in turmoil once again after some
of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders admitted they didn’t trust the local authority
searches contained in the packs.
The problem has arisen because solicitors, who are there to look out for buyers,
are unconvinced by the reliability of the searches, and many are advising their
clients to conduct searches of their own to make sure they are covered.
What that means is, on top of the £500 spent by sellers on the packs, buyers may
have to fork out at least another £200 for searches of their own. So much for HIPs
streamlining the home buying process.
Still, at least its great money for the local authorities, with demand for costly
searches set to surge.
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Critics are spoilt for choice
Never one to miss a trick, anti-HIPs group SPLINTA told how it had warned government
all along about the searches.
"We warned the government that personal searches would cause a problem with HIPs
but they completely ignored our advice. Not only would lenders not accept these
searches, nor would the solicitors acting for buyers," says SPLINTA head Nick Salmon.
He points to an earlier SPLINTA survey of 200 solicitors that found 57% would not
indemnify lenders for the content of personal searches.
"This has been an accident waiting to happen and without any pleasure we must say
to the government, we told you so."
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Whatever next for HIPs? It’s hard to recall any government initiative
in recent times that has been quite so calamitous, having been blighted by delays,
missed deadlines and errors at every step of the process.
And it seems those failures have made a marked impression on the public. With HIPs
now mandatory for all four bedroom homes, Abbey announced the results of a survey
this week which found that 4.5 million homeowners would be willing to market their
home as a three-bedroom property simply to avoid the packs.
And of course its’ not just the public who view the packs with such overt disdain:
Property bodies across the board have been pressing the government to drop HIPs
and go back to the drawing board.
But, having invested so much time and effort into them, it’s highly unlikely the
government will relent. Far from it, there are plans to roll them out for three-bedroom
homes early next month.
And so, like a gruesome car crash you can’t seem to tear your eyes from, we should
steel ourselves for the latest cataclysmic disaster that HIPs will no doubt throw
our way in the coming weeks.
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