Home information packs are going to be mandatory in the UK in June
2007. They are intended to make the home-buying and selling process more transparent, faster and consumer friendly. The packs will include a home condition and energy efficiency report.
The Government have argued that HIPs will: =B7 Enable buyers and sellers to negotiate from an informed position; =B7 Increase openness and transparency, helping to make the process less adversarial and stressful; =B7 Help the parties commit more quickly to the transaction, shortening the period of uncertainty between acceptance of an offer and contract exchange; =B7 Increase certainty by avoiding unwelcome surprises which may otherwise cause renegotiation and transaction failures after terms have been agreed; =B7 Reduce wasted costs resulting from high rates of failed transactions; =B7 Help shorten the overall transaction timescale. However, it means that if you want to sell your house you will have to pay for a pack up front =A3700 - =A31000 and some to the elements will have to be renewed every 3 months. What happens if you don't sell, what happens if you the survey is inaccurate and you don't agree with it, what's to stop the buyer simply dropping their offer at a later date any way just because they think they can?
I'm just not sure that this system isn't just creating jobs for the boys and loads of additional expense for the seller. If any one out there sees it differently or can allay my fears let me know.
Your last comment is quite correct. It's jobs for the boys, jobs for the unemployable and jobs for the jobsworths to run it all.
It's bad for two reasons that immediately spring to mind:
- Government interference in a private transaction between individuals.
- Pack is paid for by vendor. This is fundamentally unsound as a business practice from the buyer's perspective.
As a buyer, I would want to commission my own survey and evaluation of the property anyway. If there is something wrong with the property that I feel should reduce the price, then I ask the vendor to do so, negotiate or walk away. It's really not difficult and doesn't need the intervention of the nanny state.
But would a survey either buyer or seller got in addition to the official Home Info Pack carry any weight anymore? Wouldn't it mean that once an offer had been put in that that was it, as all the (admissable) information would be on the table at the beginning. So the price agreed at the beginning was the one it had been agreed the property was worth.
Only works if the buyers (and their lenders) trust the information in the pack. Many lenders have stated that they will not.
Increase the chances of deception in reality.
It might speed up some of the conveyancing tasks. The survey / financial parts of the transaction seem unlikely to be helped much though.
Until contracts are exchanged renegotiation is still going to happen though.
Increase waste by adding extra surveys (one for the pack, another the buyers/lenders trust!)
Given the success of govt. legislation achieving its stated aims (i.e. it more typically achieves the exact opposite) that ought to be worrying!
Then the exercise just cost you a grand.
Complain to the surveyor, or more likely get another one.
Here seems to be one area where things can go pear shaped. If you were a vendor with a (non obvious) secret to hide (serious structural problem, dry rot etc) you can presumably commission additional surveys until you get one that does not spot the fault - then that is the one you use in the pack.
Nothing. In fact it will probably encourage it - after all the buyer has already committed money to the pack, and some elements of which may now be getting past their sell by date - so they have extra incentive to complete the transaction, even if it means taking a hit they might otherwise have not considered.
One worrying aspect on the the creating jobs for the boys front is going to be the lack of suitable surveyors at the launch of the scheme. Govt had hoped to have many thousands trained and ready to go - anticipating many would come from a building or surveying background. The reality is they only have a fraction of the anticipated numbers so far, and most seem to be from non relevant backgrounds.
the survey information is sold to the seller, not the buyer, and this creates an unsatisfactory business/legal situation between surveyor and buyer.
how is having to find another grand when youre so broke you have to sell going to reduce stress?? While I dont want to state the damn obvious, but it seems its needed here: are people in financial trouble now going to unable to sell legally? Raising another thousand pre-sale is out of the question for many in such a situation. Perhaps there will be new schemes where company A pays for the survey then takes 2 grand from the sale price later - people will be even more badly stung than now. Reduce stress my arse.
How does one more thing to organise and pay through the nose for reduce stress anyway?
definetely. The surveyor is not answerable to the buyer, works in the seller's interest now, and the seller can cherry pick the survey, as you say further down. Also since some surveyors just want to maximise business, they will offer what the client wants, as good a survey as they can possibly think of any excuse to give. We all know about plausible denial. Its a fundamentally unsound system.
Most houses today are sold without any survey beyond a basic valuation. When every sale is subject to survey, the skill level of the surveyors will inevitably drop dramatically, as the present cherry picking of students will no longer be an option. Surveys are patchy enough already, under the new system theyll be a shambles.
with a dodgy survey the uncertainty is still there. When the buyer commissions a survey and the 2 conflict, the uncertainty will be more not less, and go on much longer.
It will improve knowledge level for those currently buying wtih no survey, but those people are choosing, as adults exercising their own free will, to not pay for the survey. Clearly the majoprity of the population does not believe the survey cost to be money well spent. Is a nanny government forcing them to spend more money (the survey cost will just be added to the sale price) at the very time they are least able to spend on extras, and when they very clearlty dont want to spend, a good thing?
Why really does the govt want to force every citizen to pay a closed shop several times per life for a product they dont even want to buy? Is this a recurring theme of this govt? Do you want your money, choices and freedoms taken away piece by piece? I sure dont. What puzzles me is why the British public seem so unaware of the game being played. In the US these concepts are part of basic education for all.
each buyer survey that conflicts with the seller survey will greatly slow and complicate matters. And for reasons above these will become common.
yes, present negotiations are mostly just excuses to make a lower offer, not genuine reasons. This practice will contiue anyway, just different excuses will be needed, such as 'my lender has now said we can only have...' 'but we realised...' Same game will continue.
and a 3rd after the first 2 conflict
surveyors will be in short supply, waiting times will be long. a buyer survey will still be wanted in some cases as before when the 2 surveys conflict, it will take ages to sort out. quick no-survey transactions will no longer be possible.
This will be a real problem in a lot of cases. Builders and surveyors looking at housing types theyre not familiar with do reach the wrong conclusions some of the time. A well known goof is the assumption that all Victorian houses have non-cavity walls. What happens when seller and surveyor dont agree on basic facts, or when seller thinks the survey complete tosh? Now they just shrug and wait for the next buyer, but with the new system there will be a real problem there.
of course. Neither buyers nor sellers want it (most are not paying for surveys now). Government will get another revenue stream from it though, which will be extracted from us with legal punishment for anyone who refuses to pay. Sounds more like extortion than acting in the interests of the citizens.
At least one of the firms that will be offering HIPs has said that they will provide 6 months (or time taken to sell if shorter) interest free credit. If you need the money quickly the discipline of having to get all the docs together before you market the property is not going to do you any harm and should help ensure a quick sale once an offer is accepted and made.
Personally I think the concept a good one at the lower end of the market where most buyers currently don't get any survey and just rely on the BS valuation.
How such a condition can be legally imposed on the seller, yet be optional in terms of acceptance for those in the industry who's excessive profits might be limited by such acceptance, is representative of the current injustices in law making.
The only people it will seem to benefit are the firms set up to manage the accreditation, and sell the training.
It is being promoted as a means for unqualified people to do some training pay licence fee and then to become a "surveyor". It takes much more training and experience than that to be able to conduct a building survey - well an meaningful building survey to be more precise.
'Hombuyers Survey and Valuation' - a tick list. The buyers will think that a comprehensive survey has been done, and may well be in for a shock after the purchase. But at least they will get to know the properties energy rating.
I wondered it mortgage lenders would offer to wrap the cost of getting an HIP for the property you are selling into the money they are lending you to get your next house? But then would that mean they'd add it to the mortgage amount and charge interest to you for the next 15 years?
I am sure there wil be plenty of orgaisations that will gladly absorb the cost of the HIP for you, and then have you pay for it several times over later!
It would seem natural that estate agents might offer this as a service - adding the (retail) price to their fee for you to pay out of the sale proceeds. Assuming they have a cosy agreement with local surveyors or one of the national conveyancing organisations (like movewithus etc) then it is just an extra profit centre for them since they should be able to negotiate a nice volume discount.
Some of those will not sell in 6 months. What then? Some will be cornered into selling prematurely at a lower price, and lose out _twice_. Yes, in some areas houses do sell that slowly.
But evidently all those people dont think so. You're outvoted. Should we not be permitted to make our own decisions in these matters? Are we not adults? Trouble is Tony, once you go down the route of enforcing your beliefs on others, they are just as morally entitled to force their beliefs on you. Its just not a clever road to go down.
I didnt pay for a survey when I moved here, and am glad I didnt. I was able to assess the building myself, money was tight at the time, the structural issues were already known, etc. If I'd been forced to pay up by some idiot nanny I'd have been truly ripped off, and would not consider it in any way a sensible move.
Which is more important, what you think others should do without knowing their circumstances, why they do what they do etc, or the basic freedom to buy and sell without being forced to pay for inappropriate pseudoservices, on penalty of punishment for what... just buying and selling.
Why do you want others to force your decisions, which is what happens when you vote for nannying, reailsing that some of the decision will be against your will? Is it not obvious that different actions are appropriate for different situations? Why do you not want the basic freedom to make your own decisions as a grown up, in pursuit of the best life you can lead?
Thats unfortunately more realistic than it sounds. The very few people that have tried (one was qualified and looked at heating system and building personally) were unable to get the energy consumption of this place right. Or even close.
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