"The Easy Way to Get Your Best UK Mortgage" |
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Home Buying Guide Contents
Making the offer / Negotiating the price
Click for Full Contents
Home Information Packs
Home Information Packs were suspended from
21 May 2010. Energy Performance Certificates are still required
An
Energy Performance Certificate - is an officially-issued document
rating the energy efficiency of your home.
This might seem a bit irrelevant but our badly made houses are said to be
responsible for up to 70% of our carbon footprint.
Sellers are required to commission, but won't need to have received an EPC
before marketing their property.
Find out How to get an EPC
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Historic
/ Archived info below - for the record.
Students of "How things work" may find this an interesting insight into how Government policy was created under Tony Blair, and what happened to it.
What was the idea behind Home Information Packs?
Home Information Packs - What You Need To Know
Overview of HIPS and Conveyancing
The Sale Process - How It Works
What was the idea behind UK Home Information Packs?
This was the situation when the UK's Labour Govenrnement, elected in 1997, came to power:
The problem was the notoriously slow home selling process in England and Wales. (Scotland, like so many of the former colonies, seems to have slightly better people in charge who pass better ideas into better laws).
To cut a long story short, a lot of time and effort was being wasted. A quarter of home sales weren't competing.
This cost people money.
In order to progress a sale a potential buyer had to pay for a valuation and / or survey, get a mortgage in place and probably pay for legal work on the property sale.
Despite this commitment the seller was under no obligation to sell until right up to the last minute when contracts were exchanged. (See the process of buying a home).
Home sellers often changed their minds or, for whatever reason, things go wrong.
Perhaps the buyer was gazumped or there are problems with the home selling chain. (Read more about what can go wrong).
Because so many home buyers are involved in long and complex chains a failure at any point can mean knock-on misery for all involved.
The Solution
Tony Blair came to power in 1997 promising many changes. One of them was to tackle this problem.
The idea was to put the onus onto the homeseller to get together the information on their property and show it to potential buyers in a "Home Seller's Pack".
In this way, for example, ten prospective buyers would not need to get 10 surveys done.
It would also show real commitment by the sellers and so avoid time wasting "let's see if anyone offers anything then let's change our minds anyway" attitudes.
To read a background view from that time and why legislation was thought necessary have a look at this article from the Guardian.
The rest of this page covers the sordid history of the initiative as it passed the legislative phases through Parliament.. To cut to the current situation go here
Home Information Packs - What You Need To Know
What happened next
Following pressure from the opposition Conservative party and a petition signed by 130 MPs in early July 2006, a significant part of the proposed content of the Home Information Pack, the Home Condition Report was scrapped.
The Home Condition Report was the major part of the whole plan that was going to replace the need for buyers to pay for a survey. (It would have been paid for by the seller rather than the buyer).
The official reason given was that mortgage lenders were not going to recognise Home Condition Reports as a substitute for a survey, which meant they were effectively useless.
Great news for the professional surveyors and Estate Agencies. Bad news for innocent home buyers
Worries that it might interfere with the property market was also seen as a concern from ministers with the housing minister, Yvette Cooper, stating that she didn’t want a ‘big bang’ effect on the housing market.
The Home Condition Report was at the heart of the Home Sellers Pack and without it, it seemed a waste of time and money from both the buyers and sellers point of view.
Around that time the name of the initiative was subtly changed to Home Information Pack.
So what was the point in having a Home Information Pack without the survey part?
The government continued to insist it would all still be compulsory from June 2007.
The Home Information Pack would now include:
- A sale statement with the address of the property, who is selling it, and information on whether or not it is being sold with vacant possession.
- Copies of title documents or deeds - proving ownership by the seller - plus replies to standard council property searches such as planning permissions, road schemes, water and drainage.
- Warranties and guarantees for any building work.
- Property Use Forms (with details of neighbour or boundary disputes and work carried out) and Contents Forms (fixtures and fittings) were still a grey area.
-
An Energy Performance Certificate (EPC),
required under an EU directive, which gives A-G ratings
on the home and practical measures to cut fuel bills and
carbon emissions.
Not willing to let Home Condition Reports die completely the government said that the Home Condition Report would be left to market forces and that estate agents and lenders will be encouraged to use them, but only voluntarily.
The key here was a fatal combination in New Labour's belief in the market always being a force for the good and the PR spin available to ministers to hide behind the green fig leaf of the Energy Performance Certificate.
This part of the HSC was widely welcomed by the green lobby. It seemed like a good idea given concerns over global warming and the fact that a quarter of the UK's carbon emissions - seen as the main culprit of global warming - come from residences.
However to anyone familiar with a government so pre occuppied with image over reality, and style over substance, it was seen as a cynical move to hide the failure to deliver on the HIP's original aims.
A shabby launch
As the June 07 launch date of Home Information Packs approached there were severe criticisms of the effect it would have on the housing market. It seems that ministers started to believe tales of a housing market crash which would lead to a general economic downturn. This was not a consensus opinion but was mentioned often in the media - particularly the Daily Mail, apparently the main driver of Tony Blair's policies.
In addition it became clear that there would not be enough Energy Performance Certificate inspectors available by the launch.
The government denied it strongly but weren't believed as this type of basic error was fairly typical of a government which has overseen some of the most shambolic mismanagement imaginable.
Examples? OK How about these: Despite spending billions on "management consultants" and improved pay, the National Health Service remains a mess. Ask anyone who's been in hospital recently. Hopefully they survived the MRSA;
the Home Office is declared "not fit for purpose" by the Home Secretary. To help them sort themselves out it is split in two at sudden notice to an incredibly optimistic six week timescale;
and finally five times more is now spent on subsidising the appalling private railways than was spent on British Rail... that's enough examples for now. Sadly there are many more.
Anyway back to our gripping story; the wings started to come the whole initiative when the latest minister in charge, the luckless communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, was forced to postpone the launch of the Home Information Packs a mere eight days before D Day.
She blamed the estate agents and other vested interests who had issued a legal challenge and admitted, surprise surprise that "barely 500 of 2,000 energy assessors needed were available"
It would instead start on the 1st of August 2007, but only for houses with more than 4 bedrooms. Other size homes would follow later.
To read more on this subject please see the list below or your mortgage guide or your home buying guide
Read enough? Just want a quote? To get your best mortgage quote quickly and easily we can put you in contact with a recommended mortgage adviser. It's free, completely confidential and there's no obligation at all. Simply fill out the form below
Read On
Quick Outline of the Home Buying process
What you're up against
How to Find your Property
Valuations and Surveys
About Conveyancing / The Legal Stuff
First Time Buyers Special Guide
Read On / Mortgage Guide
Which Mortgage is Best for Me?
How
to Get a Mortgage in the UK
Types of Mortgages
Remortgages
How to Find A Mortgage
Read On / Related Topics
Guide to UK Home and Mortgage Insurance
Important note about your credit rating
Many websites don't make it clear that filling in their mortgage enquiry form means you might be credit checked.
This can put you at risk.
UK Mortgage lenders may assume an enquiry you have aleady made to another lender means you were turned down - and not that you are in fact carefully shopping around and rejecting the bad deals.
The best way around this significant problem is to ask an independent mortgage adviser to make anonymous enquiries for you.
Without risking your credit score an adviser can find you the best available mortgage deal. They will also know how likely you are to be accepted by the lender if you decide to make a formal application.
If you would like a recommended adviser to check out the best deals for you, anonymously, simply fill in the quick form below.
" Hmm..." You might think; "Won't I be hounded by a salesman hungry for my business? "
This is the most common question we hear from our users.
The answer is no you won't.
Firstly your enquiry is only passed to ONE person on a carefully vetted list of independent advisers.
Secondly,
these mortgage advisers are professionals. Even
when the market is slow they are busy
people. There many people who need to move homes, or get
a remortgage and are looking for advice all the time.
Regardless of the state of the property market, life goes
on.
So the advisers don't have time to hassle people. It just
doesn't work like that. No one is gong to be forced into
taking out a mortgage unless they really need one.
The advisers are very used to talking with people, perhaps like yourself, who are only "dipping their toes" into the water.
Many people just want an initial quick chat and if they feel comfortable will ask the advisor to contact them again later - often in several weeks or months. As a professional, the adviser will simply diarise this and call back at the appropriate time. There is no obligation at all.
(In the unlikely event that you ever feel at all "hassled" by someone on our list please let us know immediately. We have never heard of this. But if it happened we would definitely want to know).
Contents of Making the Offer / Negotiating
Go back to contents of the Home Buyers Guide
Read about How to get a Mortgage
I've read enough for now and want to get a free Quick Mortgage Quote
Making the offer / Negotiating the price
Background
Negotiating
Sealed Bids
Protecting
your offer
Gazumping
Sellers'
Packs
Save time money and effort with all the latest tips and trade secrets.
We tell you everything you need to win the race for that dream home... how to get your seller's Estate Agent onto your side... how to get properties for a 30% plus discount.. how avoid being gazumped at the last minute and more.
Click on your chosen subject below to access this invaluable FREE information.
Please note, this information is NOT necessarily RELEVANT in Scotland
Know your enemies
How to Find Your New Home / Property
The Valuation and Survey
and so the story continueth
