Letter in Telegraph on HIPs

Ultimately prices are set by lax lending requirements, not only supply. Also, if somebody is simply "flying a kite" they obviously aren't really interested in selling, they may clutter the market or break chains.

This is what I don't get. The estate agents often complain about time wasters, but now they're saying that they're essential to the market and all sorts of dire consequences will occur if they disappear.

And since when have estate agents been troubled by gazumping...

Still I see no benefit to HIPs, and a lot of cost. The level of training of some of the new home inspectors looks very frightening.

I think they're implying that a significant proportion of people who "test the water" *do* end up selling because a suitable buyer appears fairly quickly. Faced with the cost of a HIP, such people may just stay put and not bother to test the water.

Certainly come next year I don't think prices will alter much but I do expect supply to increase in April/May and then fall - probably for about a year until people start getting used to it. I see this shifting delays to the start of the process in trying to assemble documentation, however, scanning through the rules seems to suggest that marketing can begin even with an incomplete pack, two weeks after all the information has been asked for - more or less see the ODPM err I mean Communities website.

What is this level of training to which you refer that is very frightening? To some extent it could be argued that the particular method of training is irrelevant, but demonstrating the end knowledge and ability is the important bit. Whatever route people take they still have to go through the same process to get licensed.

So the volume of sellers will fall. Those sellers are buyers elsewhere in the market so that shouldn't impact too much on prices, only on volume.

I can see why that troubles the industry! We all know who cashes in on every sale... agents, solicitors, surveyors (how ironic) and of course HM Treasury.

Also, if prices rise by 600 each week this is considered a Good Thing(tm) and entirely healthy for our market, yet a 600 information pack, which simply brings a lot of the conveyancing work up front, will tank the market? This I don't understand.

"Virgils Ghost" wrote

No, it *doubles* some of the conveyancing - because the buyer will want to re-do the survey etc themselves.

You don't expect the buyer to accept a survey commissioned by the seller, do you? :-(

In message , Tim writes

Since the home inspector will be liable for negligence to the buyer then yes. Part of the argument for the home condition report is that most people don't bother with a survey and just rely on the lender's valuation, whereas the hcr is rather more at the level of a homebuyer's.

" snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net" wrote

Just as a surveyor producing a current "homebuyer's report" is?

But that's not worth the paper it's written on, because of all the "exclusions" ["I couldn't raise the carpets"; "It wasn't raining so I couldn't check the gutters"; "I'm not sure about this aspect, so you'd better get someone else to look at it" ... !]

" snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net" wrote

So it's not worth anything to the buyer, then! (see above). What a waste!

If the HI provides indementiy for the buyer, seller and mortage Co, then it should indeed reduce duplicaton and sounds like a step forward.

wrote

If there is such an indemnity, is it backed by an insurance co or a government body / regulator?

Apparently the 'survey' part of the HIP will no longer be compulsory...! Seems the CML would not play ball and the govt. feared that enough trained 'home inspectors' would not be ready. Bad news for those who spent/lent > 8000 uk pounds training for a job that may not now exist.

Apparently the 'survey' part of the HIP will no longer be compulsory...! Seems the CML would not play ball and the govt. feared that enough trained 'home inspectors' would not be ready. Bad news for those who spent/lent > 8000 uk pounds training for a job that may not now exist.