Home information packs
The government's plans to make homeowners provide an information pack before selling their property has been dismissed as "Labour's poll tax" by a Tory peer.
The scheme ran into Conservative opposition in a vote on the Housing Bill on Tuesday.
The sellers' packs, expected to cost at least £600 to produce, would need to be commissioned before a property is put on the market, and would include a survey, search details and other information for buyers.
Ministers say the packs will help curb gazumping and speed up sales. Fewer homeowners would be expected to put their house up for sale to test the market, as the packs could take between four and six weeks to prepare.
Stakeholder Response: Which?
A spokesman for Which? said: "Which? will be very disappointed if home information packs fall from the Bill as 95 per cent of people we interviewed stated they thought that HIPs were a good idea. Which? does not understand the opposition to this initiative.
"We hope that both houses will back the consumer call for more information to help with home buying decisions. HIPs will allow people to make informed choices at a relatively small cost.
"Part five of the Housing Bill is also critical to estate agency regulation, something 92 per cent of people we surveyed wanted to see happen. Redress is a fundamental consumer right, by voting for part five peers will ensure that if people have complaints about their estate agent, that complaint will be dealt with fairly and swiftly."
Stakeholder Response: National Association of Estate Agents
Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the NAEA said: "The National Association of Estate Agents and its 10,000 members across the
Stakeholder Response: Traditional Housing Bureau
Barry Holmes, executive director of THB said:
"Housing pressure group the THB (Traditional Housing Bureau) responded with concern to suggestions by Tory Peers that the Home Information Pack, included as part of the Housing Bill, would not help the buying process.
"The Home Information Pack will give potential buyers basic, but vital, information on the property before they have committed time and money to the process of negotiating an offer and commissioning a survey.
"An example of the information immediately available is the construction method used to build a house. A purchaser will want to know whether they are looking at a solid brick and block built house, or one based on a timber or steel frame. You can’t tell just by looking at the house: without the Home Information Pack the buyer would have to commission a survey.
"Our homes are the most important financial investment that we will ever make, it seems ludicrous to deny consumers the opportunity to be properly informed particularly in terms of the construction method of the home which has direct relevance to the durability, future adaptability of the property and whether it will stand up to long term climatic change.
"We can’t see how this would fail to speed up the purchase process – we believe that there would be less failures of the buying process simply because the buyer would be in possession of vital information before they made the first move. Clearly many purchasers will then go on to verify the information for themselves, but they will be starting from a more informed point.”
"The THB, is campaigning hard for the house purchaser’s Right To Know and is urging ministers not to abandon the concept but to ensure that the Home Information pack remains an integral part of the Housing Bill."
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