HIPS: What did they achieve!
HIPS or home information packs have been disposed of by the government in a move that should save consumers almost a billion pounds of the next decade. I knew this change was made in May and this is not very topical but interesting none the less.
HIPS were, I assume designed to push the balance back in favour of the buyer thus boosting numbers of sales with knock on effects to the country as a whole. In reality they made minimal impact on the number of sales and we are back where we were with a large public pot of money used up. The problem they were meant to address, namely the rising expenses that sellers face to ensure their intended property is sound, was left unresolved. Lets face it any expense sellers have will certainly be passed onto the seller in one form or another.
Making the whole process fairer, cheaper and quicker would increase the number of sales, but saddling the seller with a higher than normal cost which he has to pass onto the buyer rather some sort of standardisation of surveys and the whole process was never the answer.
With the economy the way it is we are more money conscious that speed conscious, spending over the odds for a HIPS pack was never the way to encourage sales. Apart from that, anyone who retrained as a HIPS provider will be joining the long unemployment lists….