Does a home information pack help a buyer?

The HIP will help buyers as they will have information up front regarding the property's energy rating i.e how much its likely to cost to heat ,etc and what improvements could be made. Basically speaking if you're looking at buying a single property and two properties are of the same age in the same road up for sale then you can see the energy performance certificate of each thus giving you a comparison on their energy efficiency Unfortunately the Home Condition Report (HCR) is not a compulsory but voluntary document included in the HIP which would provide the potential buyer with a report on the property's condition on the day of inspection prior to marketing. Any "warts and all" should be recorded in the HCR for the prospective buyer's perusal before deciding to make a formal offer to purchase therefore costly (mid chain) private surveys would become a thing of the past as all information regarding the property's condition is given up front. "Would you consider buying a used car without a valid MOT?" With regard to your question all topics including electricity,mains drainage,walls,roofs,overall structure,etc,etc are covered in the HCR. Please ask for one before deciding to purchase a property as it could save you a lot of money after exchanging contracts!

I have a new house with the newest energy saving building techniques. Why would I want a HIPS package or even need it if I was to sell my house in the next few years. It is a complete waste of money. How to make your house more green to satisfy a pile of MPs who are just getting on the eco band wagon as far as I can see. Mortgage companies who are ignoring them and forcing you to pay for a proper survey is whats happening. To most of us its a lot of money for no return. It is just going to add another £1k to the price of the home and what can you do with it anyway. Waste of money, time and effort at a stressful time anyway.

its supposed to help but realistically no, but it will help the mortgage & insurance companys decide wether to provide a service for you or not. it will include past structural history as well as things like boiler services & genral building updates required floods, break in's etc...

If the Government had listened to the people who do the job, they would never have bought these in in the first place. They are a waste of time and the housing market in my area is now dead. It will answer some of your questions but not all. You would still be best advised to have a full survey and obtain your own Searches. See a Solicitor for further advice.

A few years ago the Protocol system was brought in which was supposed to quicken up conveyancing. This soon fell out of favour and solicitors went back to the tried and trusted system of searches and enquiries before contract. HIPS as far as I can see is just another failure. Searches are only deemed to be worth anything if they arenot more than about 12 weeks old. If a house takes longer than this to sell the searches will have to be redone. This is just one instance of how the cost can mount up. I understand if you don't produce a HIP you can be fined £200. If I went to sell my house and buy another then I would ask my vendor and purchaser to join me in not producign the HIPS - it would be cheaper to pay the fines and just use the old system.

It provides info like how energy efficient your house is e.g if it's insulated well and structural info as well as loads of other things but I can't remember most of them

It contains information that an honest seller would provide anyway in a folder. It will delay the sale of a property and cost more to process because although it is now a requirement, the mortgage companies will still want their own information. The BIG thing that isn't covered is something I discovered earlier this year and that is council band changes for extensions. I bought an extended cottage. At the time of negotiating, I asked the sellers what their monthly bills were, including council tax. Imagine my surprise when 2 months after moving in I had a cold call knock at the door from a council department wanting to measure my house for tax revaluation. I turned them away and made them make an appointment. It appears that when a property is extended, the property is not revalued for council tax, that happens when the property is sold, but the council planning dept is under no legal obligation to inform those wishing to extend their properties. Apparently it is an ongoing battle that the valuation depts are having with the government. This therefore makes a mockery of the HIPs because they don't contain the full facts. How can they if the seller isn't informed and the council is under no obligation to inform the householder. They have so far tried to reband my property from C to F. I am in dispute saying that it should be E and in the meantime I am paying the F rate effective from the time they made the decision which now means I'm paying the same council tax that I paid when I had a house twice the value and size of my current one. MOCKERY or what!

I've seen a sample HIP. It was 56 pages of pure waffle plus about 3 pages of useful information. It should include inspection reports on the gas and electrical installations, but since they dropped the requirement for a condition report, it doesn't include anything about structural problems.

The Home information pack was supposed to be designed to speed up the sales process. The theory was to have most of the survey, legal and financial processes ready and available before an offer was accepted. The problem as seen by the proposers of the packs was that too many house sales were taking too long to complete. My experience as a house valuer(now retired) was that the biggest hold up in most sales was caused by the financial side of deals. If the money was securely available, most other aspects of the sale could be very quickly arranged to all party satisfaction.If on the other hand Lenders had problems or people said they had the funds then it was discovered that they really did not, all sorts of chain reactions would rear up and mayhem usually followed. The straight answer to your question is that Hips bear no resemblance to what was originally planned and in fact will only serve to slow down the process. They will apply unnecessary extra costs and in a lot of cases deter people from selling in the first place. They will be of little use to the buyer as the price of the house will probably be inflated to pay for the expense of the pack. I will be very surprised if they last very long after this government is gone.