In its response to the Government’s consultation on Contents of the Home Information Pack, The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has outlined the information they see as essential for inclusion if HIPs are to fulfil their aim of better informing the buyer.

Much of RICS’s submission was of a technical nature, however there are some key over-riding principles.

• RICS supports the idea of a ‘core’ set of essential information which must be included in the packs before any property can be marketed, and nothing in the HIPs should be optional.
• At the time marketing commences, RICS believes that responses to standard searches should be no more than 3 months old.
• And while RICS has a number of concerns they support the inclusion of Home Condition Reports (HCR) in the HIPs.

Resources required

RICS also emphasises to government the need to recognise that if the new system is to be properly regulated, there will be a need for significant additional resources for monitoring, complaints handling and enforcement.

Low demand, low value areas

In its consultation paper on the HIP in ‘low demand low value areas’, the Government makes clear that there are problems expected to arise from the introduction of HIPs in these areas.

The cost of packs is likely to be high in relation to the sale price of the house, sellers are likely to be unable to afford the pack up-front as their disposable income is so low, and much of the pack is likely to become out of date as a result of the lengthy period of marketing that is likely to be needed.

Nevertheless, RICS’s view is that attempting to exclude low value properties by setting a threshold below which a pack would not be required would be both impractical and counter-productive. Setting a cut-off point would simply compound the negative perception of such areas and lead to stigmatisation, while on the other hand relying on an area-based exclusion would inevitably result in the exclusion of higher-valued properties in many cases. RICS therefore recommend relying on the operation of the market to deal with the problem.