Homeowners could rue HIP abolition
Homeowners may end up paying more to sell if the Tories get into power and press ahead with their election promise of scrapping the much-maligned Home Information Packs (HIPs).
That's the view of Newcastle-under-Lyme estate agency Heywoods Property, which believes that, despite their negative impact on the housing market, HIPs have helped to drive down some of the costs involved in buying a home.
The arrival of HIPs has changed the landscape of the house-buying process by introducing a period of delay as sellers wait to obtain the necessary documents and certificates before being allowed to market their properties.
Furthermore, the initial cost that HIPs have brought to marketing a home has deterred many sellers from putting their homes up for sale.
Heywoods said that HIPs had been another contributory factor in the shortage of available properties for sale, which had stifled the housing market over the last two years.
Nevertheless, it added, HIPs had brought new benefits to homeowners by taking away some of the stress of a sale, cutting down the time to complete the transaction process and reducing the risk of abortive sales.
But most importantly, the company concluded, since the introduction of HIPs the average cost of property searches had tumbled, brought about by a reduced number of specialist HIPs providers slashing their prices to compete for a higher market share.