estate agency appletons on 23 Nov 2007 12:18 pm
Home Information Packs
The government has announced that in England and Wales, the controversial Home Information Packs (HIPs) will be mandatory for all properties sold from the 14th of December.
Initially the HIPs were required for the sales of all properties with 4 or more bedrooms. Since September of this year, the scheme was extended to cover all the properties with 3 or more bedrooms.
Since their introduction, the HIPs have been very controversial as most people claim that they make the sale process more complicated and costly without significant tangible benefits. The average cost of a HIP is around £300-£350.
Following on from the initial expansion of the scheme to cover 3 bedroom properties in September, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has claimed that more than half of its members have recorded a fall in the number of three-bedroom-plus properties coming on the market.
However, the government is still insisting that the HIPs will bring benefit to the consumers. They claim that the packs will especially provide more information for the the first-time buyers.
