Plans to derail home-sellers packs

13 April 2012

THE House of Lords will be urged today to reject controversial Government plans for compulsory home sellers packs.

A Tory amendment to the Housing Bill would instead make the £1,000 Home Information Packs voluntary.

Under the plans, sellers would not be able to put their home on the market unless packs with surveys, searches and inspection reports were prepared.

Critics protest that the packs, will, if made compulsory under Government proposals, deprive owners of the right to sell when they want to.

First day marketing without a pack would be illegal.

Trevor Kent, a leading critic, is a member of an anti-pack campaign group which asked a representative number of estate agents the question: 'On obtaining instructions to sell, what percentage of clients demand, or need, immediate marketing?'

Respondents said that 89% of home sellers expected their property to be put on the market with no delay at all.

Agents say that currently they start marketing immediately they have confirmed their terms and the property details are approved.

Mr Kent, a former president of the National Association of Estate Agents, said this process is not understood by Government officials, who seem obsessed with having the pack in place before an agent can so much as 'whisper' that a property may become available for sale.

Home owners making an offer for another property will demand that the marketing process for their present home begins immediately or they will risk losing out as a prospective purchaser for their next one.

In a recent Government trial of one component of the pack by the Building Research Establishment, there was difficulty in getting sellers to take part because they themselves would not accept the delay in the start of marketing which the trial required.

Mr Kent said: 'Property professionals, who deal with home sellers every day, are constantly warning the Government that there will be much public anger if they are forced to delay marketing by up to three weeks.'

The Government says HIPs are necessary to reduce the extra expense prospective purchasers often face of paying for a survey on a home only to find the deal falls through later and the money has been wasted.

The amendment, which will be moved during the Third Reading of the Housing Bill, is supported by Lord Hunt of the Wirral (Con), Baroness Hamwee (Lib Dem), Lord Donaldson of Lymington (Cross- bencher) and Baroness Hanham (Con).

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