Hips suspended with immediate effect
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Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and Housing Minister Grant Shapps have suspending the requirement for homeowners to provide a Home Information Pack when selling their homes.
Pickles laid an order suspending Hips with immediate effect, pending primary legislation for a permanent abolition.
The Secretary of State says he has taken this action in order to “avoid uncertainty and prevent a slump in an already fragile housing market”.
Hips are currently holding back the housing market because sellers are having to fork-out extra cash, sometimes hundreds of pounds, just to be able to put their home up for sale.
The Government says suspending Hips will mean a saving for consumers of £870m over ten years.
Sellers will still be required to commission, but won’t need to have received, an Energy Performance Certificate before marketing their property. The Government says it will consider how the EPC can play its part in the new drive for a low carbon and eco-friendly economy.
Pickles says: “The expensive and unnecessary Home Information Pack has increased the cost and hassle of selling homes and is stifling a fragile housing market.
“That’s why I am taking emergency action to suspend the Hip, bringing down the cost of selling a home and removing unnecessary regulation from the home buying process.”
Shapps adds: “We are showing our commitment to a greener housing market by keeping Energy Performance Certificates and making them more relevant in helping buyers make informed decisions on the energy costs of their new home.”
Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward managing director Lee Watts says: “We are delighted that Hips have been suspended and it is long overdue.
“They were ill conceived and badly implemented and only served to increase the cost to sellers of moving home and deter some homeowners from putting their houses up for sale.”
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Readers' comments (15)
Exasperated me | 20 May 2010 12:03 pm
I feel sorry for those people who built a business on this flawed legislation.
Anybody want a list of 'flawed legislation'?
Start with the FSMA 2000.
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Anonymous | 20 May 2010 12:23 pm
Exasperated is incorrect in stating that the FSMA 2000 is top of the Flawed Legislation list. The Financial Services Act 1987 was a lot earlier and was the seed for the coming pensions disaster AND the Financial Services Authority, both of which are far more serious and expensive than HIPs !!
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Fire up the Quattro | 20 May 2010 12:27 pm
Barracks-room lawyers who don't remember the old legislation was in fact enacted in 1986 are exactly the sort of people that need regulating...
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Paul Harper | 20 May 2010 1:26 pm
Is Grant Shapps going to refund us the £350 pounds we just paid for the HIP that is worthless.
I am an old pensioner and cannot afford to waste money ,it was my step son who helped in paying it for us.
I request a refund.
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terry | 20 May 2010 1:40 pm
What a con HIPs were for most people. The government said thousands of Inspectors would be required and a fortune was spent on training by the people who entered this industry. The only people that gained were the training providers. Whilst this may be good for sellers thousands of pounds have been lost by people being conned into going into the industry. I assume the government will want to create a fund to compensate these poor people or perhaps they could take the money from the MPs. who ageed this farce.
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lol | 20 May 2010 2:39 pm
Why do you think people who cannot remember a date, probably because so many rules and a myriad of regulation have been passed between 1986 and now, are precisley the type of people who need regulating? Do you think giving their clients a history lesson will make them better advisers?
Are you one of those types who could rattle off legislation acts and dates in an exam, thereby making you feel puffed up and full of yourself?
You could get a job at the fsa, iunless you are employed there already.
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TRACEY | 20 May 2010 3:17 pm
I have had my property on the market for 1 1/2 years now and had to have a HIPS done "to help it sell quicker" I was told by the estate agents. I have received NOTHING, I have been informed by the Agent that if anyone was interested in my property that they would be sent the information pack but I have not even seen it, never mind that I have paid for it, I might as well have bought thin air, I don't even know what "potential buyers" will see, not that it is worth anything now. I feel that everyone that has purchased a HIPs should be given a refund, they should never have been brought in by the Government in the first place and serve no use whatsoever to either the buyer or the seller.
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Yasmin Hussain | 21 May 2010 7:37 am
On Monday the 17th May I paid £350 for HIPS how can I get this money back? It takes me such a long time to even save £50 nwadays and the reason for selling my flat in the first place is that I cannot afford it so is there any way possible to get this back?
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amanda hill | 21 May 2010 9:58 pm
i also want to know how i get a refund for the home report, i also had to borrow this money for this ridiculous report as i could not afford my house,
Any suggestions please?
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Anonymous | 23 May 2010 4:00 pm
having been made redundent before xmas ,put my house up for sale had to pay hips that i could have done without paying,can i get my money back.
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