Fine estate agents on HIPs
Share
Tory shadow housing minister Grant Shapps has reiterated his pledge to consign Home Information Packs to the bin.
HIPs have created a distorted market in housing, with estate agents often not bothering to use them to win business.
The National Association of Estate Agents has received complaints that some estate agents are bypassing HIPs, prompting Shapps to broadcast his views on Twitter.
“Home Information Packs create a grey market in home selling,” he tweets. “It’s time to make HIPs history and we will.”
HIPs have already made a £320m dent in the housing market. Last year sellers paid for more than 1.1 million packs, netting £44m in VAT for the Treasury, although only 650,000 homes were sold.
HIPs need to be in place before a property is marketed - that’s the law. But while I’m all for getting rid of HIPs wouldn’t it be great if we saw a couple of estate agents fined for flouting the law?
We’ve seen enough brokers fined for malpractice so maybe it’s time to share the love.
If you enjoyed this article, sign up here to receive daily email updates from Mortgage Strategy and Follow @mortgagestrat
