UK government scrap HIPs
The UK government has today announced plans to scrap Home Information Packs (commonly known as HIPs) which obliged sellers to provide certain information about the property before it could be sold. However, even though the idea of Home Information Packs was well-founded and respected by some in the industry there was a feeling it was nothing more than an additional cost to UK property sellers. There was even concern that much of the information in the pack would be out of date and need renewed in the event of a potential buyer stepping forward.
The UK government has been good to its word, after suggesting such a move only days ago, and estimates it will save around £870 million over the next 10 years. This is money which can be used elsewhere by the UK property owning public and should oil the wheels of the UK property market to ensure that transactions now flow more freely.
While the Home Information Packs themselves will be scrapped the energy performance certificates will be retained. This offers an at a glance look at the efficiency of any property for sale in the UK, something which more and more buyers are looking to confirm before pledging their hard-earned funds on a property purchase.
Share this..
Related stories
Is the buy to let property market starting to wobble?
Revelations that mortgage arrears in the buy to let sector have increased substantially over the last few months is causing significant concern amongst UK lenders. This is a sector which for many months has seemingly managed to avoid the worst of the UK recession although tellingly it appears that more and more landlords are starting to struggle.
A mixture of a soft rental market to...
Average home in London to reach £1m by 2030
15/05/2015 It has been predicted that the average house price in London will reach £1m by 2030, according to research by Oxford Economics. The research suggested that house prices will continue to rapidly increase as a result of strong jobs growth, a growing population and a severe housing shortage. There are currently around 8.5m people living in London, but this could increase to aroun...
Read MoreLondon sales 'driving' house prices
Sales of London property are continuing to drive up house prices elsewhere in the country, according to the government's Land Registry.The average price of a home in the capital reached £335,658 in May, compared to £180,594 for the rest of England and Wales, the agency said.As a result the registry's monthly house price index was pushed up to 219.6 points a level which represents an annua...
Read MoreNow we know why the housing market is so buoyant!
The National Association of Estate Agents has today confirmed, what many more experts already believed, that due to a shortage of quality housing in the UK there are anything up to 5 buyers pursuing every property on the market. However, it was revealed that in October estate agents in the UK sold on average 7.7 properties each which is down from 8.5 in September. So while there is more competitio...
Read MoreBritish Bankers Association casts doubt on property market pickup
The British Bankers Association has today issued figures showing that 26,097 mortgages were approved in March down from 28,024 in February. However, more alarming is the realisation that year-on-year mortgage approvals are down 25.3% from March 2008. Even though November last year was the recent low, with only 17,574 mortgages approved, there had been a gradual increase in the number and analysts...
Read More