Home Information Pack Solution (HIPs) Firsthips

News

July 2006

HIPs continue but Home Condition Reports postponed

The announcement by the Government to remove the mandatory requirement to include a Home Condition Report in the HIP has come as a shock. Shares in Rightmove and Countrywide have tumbled as they warned that the Government's u-turn could hit their future profits. Individuals training as home inspectors will be particularly concerned at this turn of events as the vast majority will have invested a great deal of time and money pursuing their qualification in the hope of establishing an income from June of next year. The future is now uncertain as the Government has introduced no timetable to establish when Home Condition Reports will become mandatory leaving "market led" forces to determine the demand following further market testing.

The Government has suggested the main motive for this change in policy has come about because the Council of Mortgage Lenders has indicated that it is likely to take some time before mortgage lenders adopt Home Condition Reports. Concerns have also been expressed that there will be an insufficient number of home inspectors qualified by June 2007. It now remains to be seen just how many trainee home inspectors will have the confidence to continue their training faced with such an uncertain future, and - just as importantly - whether the announcement will deter the new entrants to the profession that are needed to make up the requisite number.

Opponents of the pack that unfortunately include a large section of the media, all seem united in announcing the death of the HIP ignoring the fact that it is ONLY the HCR that has been suspended leaving a mandatory requirement for the HIP including title, searches and the Home Energy Certificate to be made available before marketing can commence. The HCR was always considered to be the most contentious and expensive part of the Pack, although estate agents have constantly voiced concern over the lack of first day marketing, and have possibly yet to wake up to the fact that this restrictions is still in force.

At Firsthips we are disappointed by the Government's latest announcement as we have always believed that the HCR is a crucial element of the Pack and will achieve the objective of introducing speed and certainty in a property transaction. It can only be hoped that the period of delay in establishing it as an essential part of the Pack will be properly used in testing its application and building the necessary infrastructure for its success. Many companies, including some of the largest, have based their entire business model on providing HCRs and it will be interesting to watch the business model change for these companies.

When we started Firsthips just over a year ago, we had one simple objective in mind: to provide a sophisticated, easy to use internet site that would facilitate the production of the HIP and offer an open and secure viewing platform for all the interested parties. But our objective didn't stop there.

We knew that the crucial element of the ongoing conveyancing transaction would introduce an unexpected and unwelcome element of delay and uncertainty once a buyer had been found. It seemed pointless to design a sophisticated web platform to support the HIP production and selling without involving the ongoing conveyancing transaction within the elements of our design especially as some of the elements of the HIP are required for the conveyancing process. We have also identified the Property lawyer as the ideal HIP provider. Our system offers an online e-conveyancing portal to enable the lawyers and their clients to exchange messages and documents in complete confidence; instantly and safely. We are adding more sophistication to the online hosted application with a private lawyers' section where they can exchange documents that are self assembled from the data provided by the system. The Firsthips online system is now in beta testing and we will shortly be contacting the many of you who have registered to join the testing process.

We are confident that our system will be unique in its ability to provide the HIP and e-conveyancing process efficiently, quickly and securely and remove the delay and frustration of existing paper based systems by enabling a fast track between marketing and completion to all stakeholders.

Ron Kellermann

CEO
Firsthips Ltd.


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