Property expert fears Hips chaos
(02 April 2007)

Britain's housing market could descend into "chaos" when home information packs (Hips) are introduced on June 1st, a property expert has said.

Mark Readings, of online estate agent House Network, makes his prediction following the publication of a survey that shows 87 per cent of Britons are completely unaware of the forthcoming implementation.

From June 1st all sellers of homes in the UK will have to provide potential buyers with a Hip, which backers claim will collectively save homebuyers millions of pounds.

The initiative is the fruit of the government's decade-long efforts to improve the homebuying process, which it believes is overly time-consuming and inefficient.

But the preparation process has been plagued by difficulties, most noticeably the abandonment of a key part of Hips – the home condition report – last year.

This appears to have confused the British public. Estimates of the cost of a Hip, slated at £350, varied wildly from under £200 to over £600 while just 45 per cent believed the scheme would improve the homebuying process.

"We predict that unless the chancellor acts now, home sellers will be in chaos come June 1st," Mr Readings said.

"The government needs to either spend more money to make home sellers aware, or scrap the scheme altogether."