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HIPs trials reveal extent of HIPs farce
publication date: Mar 24, 2008
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author/source: Grant Shapps
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 Shadow Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, reveals that even in trials the HIPs were failing. So why did the government continue with them?
Industry experts and consumers
have long been telling the
Government that HIPs don’t work,
that they should be scrapped and,
with the market looking vulnerable,
this was the worst possible time to be
introducing more bureaucracy.
Unfortunately, though unsurprisingly,
the Government refused to listen.
What is more surprising is that they
didn’t wait for the results of their own
trials before they charged ahead.
These were meant to be authoritative
studies, they cost £4million of taxpayers’
money and the results were
supposed to be released last autumn. Instead last month they were hurriedly
patched together and thrown out with
more spin than a Shane Warne legbreak.
The Government tried desperately
to display the results positively,
concentrating solely on the contents of
the HIPs and people’s understanding…
the rest they tried to ignore. The truth is that after sale, 8 out of 10
sellers did not think that the HIP had
helped to sell their property. Over 70%
of sellers did not think that HIPs made
the selling process more efficient and
55% of buyers did not think that the
HIP had speeded up the process. That’s pretty clear – buyers and
sellers are united in their criticism of
the Home Information Pack. They are
telling the Government that the packs
don’t speed up the process, that they
don’t make it more efficient - that they don’t help homebuying and selling.
Successive Housing Ministers have
hidden behind an assumption that
HIPs would help, we always knew they
wouldn’t and now they have been
forced to admit it too. It is worth remembering here that all the
results in this trial result from HIPs that
were given free to people who agreed
to help with the research. It doesn’t take
a lot of sense to realise that they would
have been even worse if the sellers had
to pay for the packs too. This won’t come as any comfort to
those who have invested time and
money, and in some cases their
livelihoods, following the Government
up the garden path. They were told
that they could earn up to £70,000 a
year and yet hundreds are struggling
to make ends meet. I am constantly
being approached by HIPs inspectors
and DEAs who are angry and upset
with the Government who have misled
them and investors. A fundamental problem – even after
continual warnings - is also highlighted
by the trials. The HIPs themselves
are flawed; the trials revealed that a
significant majority of solicitors did
not think they would accept personal
searches – saying that their quality
could not be trusted and that there
was real concern over how quickly
they became outdated. The Conservative Party has always said
that HIPs are a needless, useless waste
of time and have a very firm position
on scrapping HIPs. We believe that by
stripping out the pointless bureaucracy
and simply widening the scope of
EPCs we will create more work for
inspectors, improving environmental
standards without endangering the
housing market. We do recognise the need for the
homebuying process to be speeded up;
to become more efficient; to be made
easier. We know that HIPs aren’t the
solution and that is why we launched our
policy review into homebuying, headed
by Kirstie Allsopp and Owen Inskip. We have asked for contributions from
across the industry and beyond and have
had an incredible response. Anyone who
wishes to pass on their ideas can visit
www.homebuyingreview.com. REEDS RAINS FRUSTRATED BY GOVERNMENT RESEARCH Reeds Rains, one of the largest estate
agents in the country, is frustrated by
the research from the Department for
Communities and Local Government,
which claims satisfaction with HIPs.
Mark Gilbertson, Legal Services
Operations Director, said: “We are very frustrated by the research that has
been released, especially as it is based
on trials that happened a year ago. As
an organisation we have worked hard
since the legislation came in to make
sure that we are able to provide HIPs
to our customers within seven days. In
fact we are able to provide an Energy Performance Certificate within three
days, meaning they are available to
buyers very quickly. Sellers may be
satisfied but the aim of the packs was
to provide information to buyers. The
difficulty we are finding is that when we
offer the packs to prospective buyers they
just aren’t interested in the information.” |
