I think you've missed a point or two here. Solicitors, conveyancers and surveyors weren't civil servants last time I checked. The companies offering HIPS are very large commercial companies, who are quite happy to so so. NONE of the cost of a HIP is a tax, it will all go to commercial companies. The HCR training companies are also commercial. The only public sector involvement is the Land Charges Search, which is already done for any property. And, those searches may well be done as personal searches, which is a huge *commercial* industry. (If you get a CON 29 local authority one, they are more thorough, but the fee paid to the LA in no way covers the cost of provision, btw.)
And how is it flawed to have one single HIP paid for by one individual? The alternative is that each buyer commissions a HIP - much as is done now - and that is plainly daft. This system, btw, works very well indeed in other parts of the world, and is similar to the far more sensible Scottish paradigm. I think the jobsworths are those who oppose change for the sake of opposing it, and because it scares them. That's not aimed at you, btw, but some of the "professionals" who have been quite absurd in their scaremongering.
I am constantly amazed at how people buy the biggest purchase of their lives and don't do proper due diligence......
Ali