The invasiveness of HIPs

[Guest maxxangel]

I have just been filling in piles of forms our solicitors have sent us for the sale of our house. One of them is connected with the HIP and they want ot know practically every detail of the day to day runnings of your home life. They want to know all the details of your utilities providers including broadband and they want your last water supply statement. I'm not sure why, seeing as once the buyers move in they will be choosing all their own utilities providers. I found the HIP inspection rather invasive as well, because the chap who did it was opening and photographing in places like our airing cupboard. What if I'd had my smalls airing in there.:embarrassed:

 

I'm just hoping that the sale goes through okay, because we have to pay our solicitors a non-refundable £200 up front. It's tempting to wait until I'm sure the buyer's mortgage has definitely gone through first, but then that would only slow things down. Just when I thought things would start getting easier!

Cara

[Guest Sharon and Paul]

HI MAX , We just had our hips done , And our house is on the market now?. I thought it was a waste of time and my money, as our house is only 2 years old ?,still no choice at the end of the day . The thing I am worried about is we haven't even had or meds done yet , but the other PIA s our saying they are having problems selling so I thought what the hell if we have to rent so be it?. I hope you sell your house ok and then you can look forword to joining the rest of the poms allready out there enjoying the lovely weather , so chin up ,and its your house so dont let the estate agents bully you in to lowering the price , so good luck keep us posted ? it will give the rest of us hope???????.

[Guest The Hadleys]

HI MAX , We just had our hips done , And our house is on the market now?. I thought it was a waste of time and my money, as our house is only 2 years old ?,still no choice at the end of the day . The thing I am worried about is we haven't even had or meds done yet , but the other PIA s our saying they are having problems selling so I thought what the hell if we have to rent so be it?. I hope you sell your house ok and then you can look forword to joining the rest of the poms allready out there enjoying the lovely weather , so chin up ,and its your house so dont let the estate agents bully you in to lowering the price , so good luck keep us posted ? it will give the rest of us hope???????.

 

 

Hi, just thought I would add my little moan. My house has just gone on the market, and I totally agree HIPS are a complete waste of time. I'm sick of people looking around and saying "thats nice" "this is nice" with no intention of putting in an offer, my poor kids can't live properly because I keep saying "put that away, keep the house tidy in case we get a viewing" - I JUST WANNA SELL THE BLOODY THE HOUSE AND GO, sorry I lost it then. Anyway, hope you both sell quick so you can start living the dream.

 

Dawn

[Guest Martin and Val]

Hi,

We agree HIPS seems to be a waste of money but I must say the chap who came to do the energy efficiency checks was very good. Yes he took photo's of the boiler, hot water tank etc but this must help him remember which house he is compiling the report for later in the day. I'm sure after looking around several a day they must all seem the same. We haven't been asked any questions about the running costs either.

Cara, if we were we would go back and talk to the solicitor or seek a different one. We found one that is doing it on a no sale no fee basis. Obviously we had to pay for the HIP's pack directly with the company used, about £340.

The house went on the market this week, had a viewing today which was positive but it's early days yet.

Keep smiling, good luck to all those currently selling unless of course you live next door to us, in that case you can wait till we have sold!

Martin and Val

[ianb]

Must agree with the view on HIPS. Ours was done and luckily everything done and dusted now but the HIPS is just another knee jerk reaction from the Govt and another method of getting more cash out of the poor British people !! Still it helps pay for all the people coming in the other direction. God im glad i am going!!

 

Was told that it was realised it was such a big mistake and added no real value but they got stick because when they came up with this mishap so many people had to get trained and qualified to carry out all hell would have kicked off if it were scrapped. Not sure if true but would not be surprised!

 

Still i know full well there will always be something similar on the other side that we will end up thinking "what the....":biglaugh:

[Guest sarahsmartiepants]

Sorry to sound dumb.....what is HIPS?

Obviously you have to have this check before you sell.....but why????

sarah

glad I sold 2 yrs ago then!

[Guest caoimhe]

Sorry to be ignorant and living in Northern Ireland what is HIPs

[Guest the4hopes]

They are Home Information Packs, supposed to help you sell your house, originally planned to include your own survey so the buyers don't need to do one, but that didn't work people still wanted to get their own surveys. It is just a way now for the government to make money. It puts a rating of home energy efficiency. Which no one is interested in, it is costing us £420 on a value of our house of £189,000. It sits in a drawer at the estate agents and no one asks to see it. You have to have it done before you can put your house on the market, pay when you sell the house, even if you decide not to sell you still have to pay!!

A man came round for about an hour, looked at the boiler, radiators loft insulation, asked a few questions and took some photos. We havent even see the pack yet!

You are lucky you missed it!

Laura x

[Guest Guzzler&Sas]

Home information pack, where the seller gets a report done on the condition of the home, designed to speed up the house sale????????????????????????/:wacko:

 

Guzzler

[Rachiegarlo]

I think you are really being ripped off big time. Here all these things are the responsibility of the buyer! Houses have set open days, you don't have to be there, the estate agent spends 30 - 45 mins there at the set time. Interested people turn up then. If they can't then they can make an appointment. They can pick up a brochure when they visit which has a floor plan and council costs on it.

[ianb]

Sorry to sound dumb.....what is HIPS?

Obviously you have to have this check before you sell.....but why????

sarah

glad I sold 2 yrs ago then!

 

Everyone here as been asking the same here Sarah. !!!We have sold now and we still not even seen the thing even though it is ours!! I am starting to think its a myth;)

[Guest graandjac]

:realmad:We got our hip done and when we had viewings we showed it to them , and back came a look of "what's a hip" . Agree with everyone total waist of time and just another TAX from this government . Cheers Graham

[Guest caoimhe]

They haven't brought it in to Norther Ireland yet so hopefully my house will be up for sale before they do.

 

In theory the seller having the survey done would really make selling a lot easier if it was accepted by all lenders!!!

[Guest maxxangel]

HI MAX , We just had our hips done , And our house is on the market now?. I thought it was a waste of time and my money, as our house is only 2 years old ?,still no choice at the end of the day . The thing I am worried about is we haven't even had or meds done yet , but the other PIA s our saying they are having problems selling so I thought what the hell if we have to rent so be it?. I hope you sell your house ok and then you can look forword to joining the rest of the poms allready out there enjoying the lovely weather , so chin up ,and its your house so dont let the estate agents bully you in to lowering the price , so good luck keep us posted ? it will give the rest of us hope???????.

 

In hindsight I wish we had sold earlier and just rented until the visa came through. We were looking at moving whether we stayed in the UK or not. Last summer we could probably have got £7000 more for our house.

[Guest andy&jill]

Hi, have to agree with all the comments above the HIP is a complete and utter waste of time and money, asked our agent if any one had asked to see it, Answer, NO. Whats the point.

Our house and a good energy rating B or C. So what!!! If you like the house you'll buy it.

The australians have it sussed with the open inspections, No small talk with the people looking round, Just had someone nose round our house just, turned out there house is not even on the market.

So gonna have words with my agent, my teenage daughter not amused been turfed out of bed to tidy her room

Anyway im hoping well have a decent offer soon.

regards

andy

[Guest soggy]

They haven't brought it in to Norther Ireland yet so hopefully my house will be up for sale before they do.

 

In theory the seller having the survey done would really make selling a lot easier if it was accepted by all lenders!!!

 

If it is the same as the rest of the UK you can get around having a hip if you put it on the market befor the law comes in, a small free ad on an internet property site is what I used, it gives you 1 year i think.

 

Simon

[Guest caoimhe]

In hindsight I wish we had sold earlier and just rented until the visa came through. We were looking at moving whether we stayed in the UK or not. Last summer we could probably have got £7000 more for our house.

 

Last summer a house in my street identical to ours sold for £310,000 now another is on the market in the street for £270,000. A drop of £40,000

[Guest Aussie pat]

Our house is also on the market. No one has asked to see it. The HIPS man panicked when he came out as we have an annex in our garden. He gets the same fee for all houses regardless of size. So he ignored the extra dwelling. He also arrived in a fancy suit and was not dressed to climb around looking in lofts. He also had no ladder with him. As he was leaving he told us that he would be unable to make most of our house 'fit' the software he has to use for his report so lots of info would be left out. It would make you laugh if we weren't the people having to pay for it.

[Guest sazzle]

hi all, I'm hoping I can shed some light on HIPS (home information packs) for you from an estate agents view (I know your prob not interested now Ive admitted what I do for a living!). I fully agree no buyers so far have requested to see a hip from us but ours are linked on our website so we dont have to print them off (they are about 50 pages long!!! not very environmentally friendly!!) there are occasions once you've actually sold that they are useful, one of the first houses we sold with one is about to complete and it has speeded the process up because all the searches are done. Also if your selling a flat they are good because they have all the leasehold info in them which can take solicitors ages to get once sold so again quicker.

Something the government didnt think about however is that they only really save the buyer money where the house has sold fairly straight away as after 3 months the searches can become invalid and a lot of mortgage lenders will want them re-doing (the buyer would pay for this like before), realistically in todays market only the very lucky are selling fast.

I've got my house on and we've only just started the process literally but I know how long houses are taking to sell. I dont sell where I live and it is slower where I live, but where I sell is one of the most popular areas and even thats slowed loads (not great when your trying to save money to emigrate!).

And now were finding that even when a HIP speeds it up the mortgage companies are slowing it down because of a lot of redundancies and them pulling lots of products, its putting pressure on what is available and it seems to take forever for buyers to go through the process- such a catch 22, and a bloody nightmare at the moment.

If we werent going on my profession I'd be having a serious re-think although as hard as it is I love my job still and am living in hope of selling houses in the sunshine!!

Sorry if thats really negative I'd just urge anyone thinking of selling to do it sooner than later, move in with relatives if you have to! bear in mind it takes on average 12 weeks from offer to completion as well so that will buy you extra time.

Oh and as far as I'maware the only way out of hips are if you sell the house with a sitting tenant that will stay after you go (that doesnt include the bugs and mice!), you can defer payment for about 10 months but you still have to pay it eventually.