Home Information Packs to go ahead
The Housing Act 2004 has now received Royal Assent, which means that from the introduction date of the new scheme anyone selling a property in England and Wales will need to compile a Home Information Pack (HIP) up-front for potential buyers when marketing their property.
This pack will include a Home Condition Report (HCR), all the required legal documentation, a lease copy and management records (if the property is leasehold) plus planning permissions and building control approvals for alterations and extensions. From January 2007, it will be illegal to market your home without a HIP.
The HCR needs to be produced by a government-licensed home inspector. Local chartered building surveyor Rund Partnership Limited, based in Locks Heath, will be among the first few home inspectors in the UK and will be expecting to introduce, in conjunction with local estate agents, voluntary schemes of pre-sale-surveys (i.e. home condition reports) in advance of the launch of the national scheme.
Stuart Parrett, director of the new scheme at Rund Partnership Limited, states that ‘this act is the result of consumer pressure to provide a level playing field when buying and selling homes. The new Home Information Pack is designed to help prevent gazumping, provide property-condition advice and set a national standard for home inspection and report writing. Several innovative features are to be introduced on the Home Condition Report, including an Energy Efficiency appraisal.’
proinspect.co.uk.
Buyer confidence in market increases
The Hometrack November survey of the national housing market reports a fall of 0.6 per cent for the second consecutive month, the fifth month in a row that house prices have fallen. The average property price now stands at £164,800, down from a peak of £167,700 in June this year. Since January this year prices have risen by 1.90 per cent, which hides an initial rise of 3.8 per cent in the first six months of the year before the downturn began in July.
John Wriglesworth, Hometrack’s housing economist, comments: ‘This month’s house price fall confirms, beyond doubt, that the housing boom is well and truly over. With house prices now over 100 per cent higher than five years ago, values have reached their peak given current levels of household income and interest rates.
‘We expect house prices to stabilise next year and recover in the second half. Household incomes are rising by five per cent per annum, unemployment is falling and is now at a 20-year low, interest rates are likely to remain stable rather than increase and lenders are continuing to extend the multiple of income on which they will lend, which all points to a recovery of buyer confidence next year. Typical mortgage repayments as a percentage of average earnings are broadly in line with long term averages, and are two-thirds of the previous peak back in 1989.’