All home owners in England and Wales from the 14th Decmber 2007 need to arrange for a Home Information Pack to be prepared before putting their homes up for sale. The Packs will contain an Energy Performance Certificate, searches and legal documents, which will be mandatory.  A Home Condition Report can also be included by sellers on a voluntary basis.

At Read Maurice we will take control of placing your property for sale and organising for the Home Information Pack (HIP) to be prepared. From December 2007 the HIP will cost you from £350 plus VAT and is payable in advance of placing your property on the market. Leasehold property will attract a higher HIPS cost due to the quantity of additional documents required by law.

Home Information Packs are intended to improve the homebuying and selling experience for consumers and to reduce the carbon emissions from homes. The current home buying and selling process is slow, expensive and uncertain. Moreover, most buyers are provided with little or no information about the energy efficiency of the home they are considering buying.
This has been confirmed most recently by the HIPs Baseline research, conducted in summer 2006 by the Building Research Establishment and Ipsos MORI.
The key conclusions were:

- The average (mean) transaction time from marketing to completion was over 6.5 months. Median transaction times were nearly 5 months. 1 in 4 takes 9 months or longer.
- The average time from "offer agreed" to "exchange of contract" was 81 days - about 10 days longer than in 1998
- The average cost of a completed transaction was £1,546, with first-time buyers paying slightly more
- 23% of buyers who had completed a transaction experienced at least one failed transaction during the course of their most recent house buying and selling experience
- Where a transaction fails at a sufficiently late stage between offer and exchange the buyer's wasted costs are typically over £1000

Moreover, research by the Energy Savings Trust has shown that:

- Our homes account for 27% of the UK's carbon emissions contributing to global climate change
- The average home owner would save around £300 in fuel bills by making their home more energy efficient

Below is our guide to The Home Information Pack

Energy Performance Certificate >>
Sale statement >>
Searches >>
Evidence of title >>
Leasehold and commonhold documents >>
Home Information Pack Index >>

The Home Information Pack contains important information that buyers and sellers need to know. From the 1 August 2007, anyone marketing a 4 bedroom property, or their representative, will be legally required to prepare a Home Information Pack and make it available to potential buyers of the property..
For sellers, providing a Pack upfront should reduce the likelihood of any nasty surprises in the selling process that could delay the sale, as buyers will be able to make more informed decisions about purchasing their home.
For buyers, the Pack provides essential information about properties they are considering buying, free of charge.
What does a Pack contain?

Energy Performance Certificate
Energy Performance Certificates tell you how energy efficient a home is on a scale of A-G. The most efficient homes - which should have the lowest fuel bills - are in band A.
The Certificate also tells you, on a scale of A-G, about the impact the home has on the environment. Better-rated homes should have less impact through carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
The average property in the UK is in bands D-E for both ratings. The Certificate includes recommendations on ways to improve the home's energy efficiency to save you money and help the environment.

Sellers of newly built homes will have to provide a predicted assessment of the energy efficiency of the property, but a full Energy Performance Certificate should be provided to the buyer when the home is completed.

Legal Summary
Home Information Packs will contain some complex documents that can be difficult to understand. The optional summary of the legal content of the pack could therefore be very helpful to buyers, although it will not remove the need for buyers to take their own legal advice as well.

Sale statement
The sale statement should provide some basic information about the site, including:

• The address of the property being sold
• Whether the property is freehold, leasehold or commonhold
• Whether the property is registered or unregistered
• Whether or not the property is being sold with vacant possession

Searches
The Home Information Pack must include:

• The local land charges register relating to the property being sold. If the search is carried out by the local authority, an official search certificate will be provided. Alternatively a personal search company can be used.
• Other records held by the local authority on matters of interest to buyers, such as planning decisions and road building proposals. These are referred to as local enquiries in the Home Information Pack regulations. A local authority or a personal search company can be used.  
• The provision of drainage and water services to the property. The local water company or a personal search company can be used (however, the search must comply with the HIP Regulations, schedule 9)

The procedural guidance to the Home Information Pack Regulations contains more information about what should be included in the search reports. For detailed advice dealing with local enquiries, drainage and water, and general provisions applying to all search reports and those who provide them (e.g. local authorities, water companies and personal search companies)

Evidence of title
These documents prove that the seller owns the property and therefore has the right to sell it. Where the property being sold is registered, certain documents that are available on request from the Land Registry must be included in the Pack. These provide an up-to-date official record of who owns the land, and consist of:

• Official copies of the individual register (made up of a property register, proprietorship register and, typically, a charges register)
• An official copy of the title plan

In the case of the sale of a commonhold interest, official copies of the register and title plan should be produced for both the unit and common parts and has details of additional requirements for sales of commonhold properties. For sales of unregistered land, the Pack must include copies of a certificate of an official search of the index map (obtained from the Land Registry), and those documents that the seller intends to rely on to provide evidence of title to the property, and thus the right to sell it.

Leasehold and commonhold documents
Most of the documents that must be included in the Home Information Pack are applicable to all transactions, but some are needed only for leasehold and commonhold sales.
The required leasehold documents are:

• A copy of the lease
• Any regulations or rules that apply to the property that aren't mentioned in the lease and any proposed amendments to same
• Statements or summaries of service charges covering the previous 36 months
• Where appropriate, the most recent requests for payment of service charges, ground rent, insurance against damage for the building in which the property is situated, and insurance in respect of personal injury caused by or within the building during the 12-month period before marketing began
• The name and address of the current or proposed lessor, and details of any managing agent that has been appointed or proposed by the lessor to manage the property
• A summary of any works being undertaken or proposed that will affect the property or the building in which it's situated.

The required commonhold documents are:
An official copy of the individual register and title plan for the common parts. This is in addition to official copies for the unit
An official copy of the commonhold community statement. Where they are reasonably obtainable, or sellers can reasonably be expected to be aware of them, the following documents and information are also required:

• Copies of any regulations or rules not described in the commonhold community statement and any amendments proposed to those regulations or to the commonhold community statement
• Copies of any requests for payments made in the previous 12 months in respect of commonhold assessment, reserve fund levy and insurance (if not covered by a request for commonhold assessment)
• The name and address of any managing agent or other person appointed or proposed to be appointed by the commonhold association to manage the commonhold
• A summary of current or proposed works affecting the commonhold.

Home Information Pack Index
The compulsory documents include a Home Information Pack Index listing the documents contained in the Pack. The Index provides a checklist for sellers, buyers, estate agents and enforcement authorities. Where a document that must be included in the Pack is unavailable, the Index must say so, give the reason it is missing, and indicate what steps are being taken to obtain it. Where documents are added to or removed from the Pack at a later stage, the Index should be revised accordingly.

Copyright
The material featured on this page is subject to Crown copyright and has been sourced from http://www.homeinformationpacks.gov.uk