Home information packs
Home sellers' packs aimed at speeding up the home-buying process in
They will force sellers to have surveys and local authority searches done before putting properties up for sale.
But critics say the home information packs, which will cost about £600, are a waste of money and could go out of date before properties are sold.
Stakeholder Response: Council of Mortgage Lenders
Michael Coogan, CML director general, said:
"By the time the packs become compulsory, they will have been a decade in the making. Consumers will not thank the government if they are not user-friendly after such a long gestation period. But there are still a number of gaping holes in the framework that need urgent attention and the full commitment of government to address.
"Lenders and the CML are committed to ensuring that the packs are as useful as they can be – and help to reduce stress and delays in the conveyancing process. It is now time to work together on the practical issues to ensure that the introduction of the packs does not inadvertently create unhelpful market distortions or load unnecessary costs on consumers."
Stakeholder Response: British Property Federation
A spokesman for the British Property Federation said: "The British Property Federation welcomes the government's decision to implement a pilot phase for home information packs (HIPs) followed by a period to review the results of the pilot study before compulsion begins in 2007. The BPF also welcomes the inclusion of powers to dis-apply the provision requiring HIPs in the event that they prove unworkable.
"Although the British Property Federation's core remit is not directly concerned with representing owner-occupiers of residential property, our initial concerns were with the potential additional costs they will impose on landlords selling property and the practicalities of what is being proposed. However, the BPF supports the government's cautious approach and hopes that this will help to iron out complications before HIPs are implemented nationally."
Stakeholder Response: Traditional Housing Bureau
Barry Holmes, THB executive director, said: "The home sellers' 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 sellers' 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. Consumers ought to be made aware that houses built by modern lightweight prefabricated methods have shorter lifespans, are less durable, more susceptible to damage in the event of a fire and less resistant to climate change than homes built from modern masonry materials. All of this has a direct impact on the investment potential of any such purchase as well as the quality of life people can expect living in such homes.
"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 verify the information for themselves, but they will be starting from a more informed point."
Stakeholder Response: Construction Products Association
"A significant proportion of property transactions currently take place with purchasers undertaking no detailed survey of the property they are buying.Where surveys are undertaken, buyers unnecessarily spend money on repeated surveys on a property when a single home information pack would invariably remove the need for them to do so.
"The packs will introduce greater transparency to the market by standardising the information available. Buyers will therefore be better informed about the extent of the repair and maintenance work which is needed and the price of the property will be affected accordingly. One of the elements of the pack which the Association particularly supports is the inclusion of energy efficiency information. This will improve buyers' awareness of the energy efficiency of a property, thereby encouraging vendors to improve the property's energy efficiency and, where energy efficiency is particularly high, to market this as a unique selling point."
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