Home Information Pack
If you are selling a property then you will need to put together a Home Information Pack (HIP) which will be given to potential buyers of your home. This pack is now compulsory for any property sales (even private sales) in England and Wales since the launch date of December 2007.
The HIP was designed to make the house sale process easier - the pack contains a lot of relevant and essential information in one easy to access pack. At the moment HIPs must contain:
- A Home Information Pack Index (stating what is - and isn't - contained in the pack).
- An Energy Performance Certificate/EPC (specifying how energy efficient the property is).
- A Sale Statement (giving an overview of the sale).
- Standard searches (such as water and drainage and local authority searches).
- Evidence of Title (i.e. that you own the property).
- A copy of the lease/commonhold information (if appropriate).
There are also other documents that you can put in your HIP but these don't have to go in. These include:
- A Home Condition Report/HCR (that gives information on any work that may need to be done and so on).
- Guarantees and warranties (for appliances that will be left in the property).
- Any additional searches/leasehold/commonhold information (if appropriate).
There are various ways to put together HIPs. You can, of course, do it yourself or you can have your estate agent, financial advisor or solicitor do it for you. Your estate agent may offer a HIP service where you only pay for the pack when the property is sold although, in most cases, there will be a payment involved at some point. Even if you put your own HIP together you will need to use accredited Energy and Home Condition Assessors. There are also various HIP companies out there now that will do it for you.
If you decide to use a specialist service to put together your Home Information Pack then look for organisations that are members of the HIP Code and, if they are doing searches for you, that they are members of the Search Code. It is important to protect your interests here as you will have to pay for the pack to be put together (even if you put it together yourself you will have fees and costs to pay for certain reports/searches).