New Regulations

Changes in Home Information Pack regulations

There are major changes ahead in the regulations governing Home Information Packs.  Home Information Packs were made mandatory for all homes in England from December 2007.  The Home Information Pack contains the documents that your solicitor would have been responsible for collecting when you were buying the property such as the title documents and the Local Authority searches etc, plus a new document, the Energy Performance Certificate, which was introduced for inclusion in the Home Information Packs.  The EPC shows how energy efficient your property is by the use of a coloured bar chart, like that you get on new white goods and gives recommendations on how to make savings in energy use.

If your property was on the market before Home Information Packs became mandatory, then you did not need a HIP, however, from April 1st 2009, any property being marketed will need a full Home Information Pack, including the Energy Performance Certificate.

Other changes that are effecting the Home Information Packs production are that up until now, you only needed to have commissioned a Home Information Packs before you could market your property, form April 6th you will need to have the Home Information Packs in place before you can start to market your property.  Because the searches needed for a Home Information Packs can take some time to be delivered, a Mini Home Information Pack is available, which is basically the full Home Information Packs less the searches which can be inserted at a later date.  There are other technical changes to the regulations governing the Searches, which will inevitably lead to an increase in costs and time.

Yet another new inclusion in the Home Information Pack is a Personal Information Questionnaire, to be completed by the present owner of the property being sold.

Home Information Packs have made the time taken to complete the sale of a house be substantially reduced.  This is because the lawyers have all most all of the information that they require at the start of the sale process.  Also a report by Rentons Countrywide Estate Agency shows that having a HIP reduces the ‘fall through’ rate reduced by over 8%.