Home Information Packs Demystified

The Government's approach to Home Information Packs has been bizarre in the extreme. If you follow the history of the Home Information Packs first they were on, then they were off, then certain items had to be included, then certain items excluded. Effectively, the bottom line is that the Government want Home Information Packs so they can include an Energy Performance Certificate and the rest, in our opinion is simply tagged along.

So, what is a Home Information Pack and when do you need one? What will be in it when you get one?

The present rules state that if you market a property you need to market it with the benefit of a Home Information Pack, affectionately known as a HIP. The Home Information Pack by law must contain certain prescribed forms and usually follows an Index, Local Authority Search, Drainage Search, Energy Performance Certificate, a statement regarding the property, Title to the property and in the case of Leasehold properties a copy of the Lease and may contain other additional information. The idea behind the Home Information Pack is so a purchaser can have the information up front and originally, they were supposed to be designed to improve the house selling and buying process but in reality and having had HIPS with us for some time, they have made very little impact.

If you are buying a property, it may be best to ask for the Home Information Pack so that when you instruct your solicitor you have it there ready for him. In this day and age, most Home Information Packs are stored electronically and downloaded.

As a seller of a property even if you sell the property yourself you still need a Home Information Pack so you will have to commission one. Ratcliffe & Bibby can assist if you want to produce your Home Information Pack prior to putting the property on the market so that when you get to the Estate Agent you have the Home Information Pack in your hand.

If you are purchasing the property your solicitor will look at the HIP for you and report to you on the searches. Clearly as a purchaser, you no longer have to pay for the cost of searches because they should be covered by the HIP. However, be warned, searches have a shelf life and if the property has been on the market a long time, there is no requirement to update the searches so unfortunately, you may end up having to do searches anyway. Your solicitor will advise you if the searches in the HIP can be used.

As to the Energy Performance Certificate this will give you a rating for the property and when you have completed your purchase you may wish to upgrade the loft insulation etc, to improve your Energy Performance Certificate.

Therefore, HIPS are nothing to worry about, it should help you with your purchase, save you a bit of money on the searches and in connection with the sale, speed it up slightly because no-one should be waiting for searches.