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NAEA demands Hips review
27 August 2008 11:30
The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) has blamed home information packs (Hips) for exacerbating the housing market slump and called for them to be reviewed.
Since they were introduced 12 months ago, Hips have come in for repeated criticism from some quarters, their reputation suffering further for coinciding with a market slowdown that has seen house prices fall by 8.1 per cent, according to Nationwide data.
Now NAEA chief executive Pete Bolton King has demanded 'urgent action' from the government on these packs, claiming that they are the ill-suited to simplifying the home-buying process given current market conditions and have actually made things worse.
He was particularly sceptical of the requirement that local searches are included in Hips, asserting that properties are often on sale for so long that these searches are out of date by the time they are sold, forcing consumers to pay out extra to have them repeated.
Mr King therefore demanded that a new system be implemented that aids both buyers and sellers, suggesting that Hips should be simplified to contain only information that is "useful", such as a seller's questionnaire and a reviewed Energy Performance Certificate.
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