With the government's recent announcement that it plans to introduce a single set of standards for Home Information Packs, it appears that despite the efforts of supporters of the HIPCode, this first fledgling attempt at standards appears consigned to the same fate as the Norwegian Blue. In a statement, the government confirmed that they will be working with professional bodies including RICS, NAEA and The Law Society to improve the documentation contained within HIPs. This issue, that The Partnership has been campaigning for over the past three years, has clearly yet to be addressed and the government is now ready to step in to help improve standards. With the use of variable quality, manually produced personal local authority searches and incomplete title information still widespread amongst the majority of HIP providers, this new code of practice should help guide consumers to using professional suppliers and eliminate the duplication of effort that inferior quality HIPs have been generating to date.
Shift in Conservative position on HIPs
The twilight zone that is English Politics 2008 has revealed a change in attitude towards HIPs by the Conservative party. Grant Schapps, the shadow housing minister, has been describing the “positive spin-offs from the introduction of HIPs” and that any future government would be “mad to do away with anything that has been helpful … there is no dogma about this whole thing at all as far as I am concerned”. This monumental shift may cause consternation amongst anti-HIP campaigners who have been ticking off the days to a Conservative government. After years of campaigning against their introduction it appears that to opposition politicians, maybe HIPs are not the guaranteed vote-loser that they had originally envisaged.
Newbuilds
There appears to be continued confusion about HIPs for newbuilds. Although since April, all newly marketed properties irrespective of their build status require a HIP, there is still questions about the use of Predicted Energy Assessments (PEAs) and full Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). Fundamentally, if a building is incomplete, it will need a PEA that is derived from the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) ratings available for all new buildings, calculations that are available from the developer. The PEA can be calculated from these figures without requiring a visit to the property. However, when the building is complete, a full EPC must still be produced, but this does not require an assessor to re-visit the property and is calculated off-site.
Partnership System Usage
To enable our users to enter instructions even more quickly, we have added a new postcode lookup for those that do not use the Reapit RPS system. This means that with our system, universally accepted as being the simplest on the market with single-click ordering and requiring only four pieces of information, it now takes less than 20 seconds to place an order, and we still offer the flexibility of client invoicing and unrivalled ease of access to documents and energy data. We have also added the ability for clients to tell us where there are ancillary properties, as well as online help screens for assistance where necessary.
