HIPs descend into further chaos

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) is branding home information packs ‘total chaos’ following today’s announcement by Ruth Kelly.

The legislation will be delayed until 1st August and subsequently implemented in a phased fashion due to a lack of enough certified domestic energy assessors (DEA) to satisfy the energy performance certificate (EPC) element of the Packs.

Peter Bolton King, Chief Executive at the NAEA, comments: “We have continually voiced concerns over the lack of energy assessors and are pleased to see the government at last paying attention to the situation. As an awarding body ourselves, we are very supportive of the principles of energy performance certificates. We believe it is vitally important to address green issues within the property industry. However, the industry needs more time to train and certify enough assessors in order to satisfy market demands.

“It is clear from Ruth Kelly’s statement that the government is still confusing the home information pack and the energy performance certificate issues. EPCs do not need to be dealt with as part of HIPs. Extracting them from the Pack legislation would satisfy the green agenda and make the whole process easier.

“The proposed phased implantation is confusing things even further. All properties with four bedrooms or more will require an EPC and HIP from August 1st. Smaller properties will be required to follow suit as soon as there are enough DEAs available. We believe it is nonsensical to bring in EPCs for four bedroom houses and larger only. We urge the government to take EPCs out of HIPs and implement them as a separate entity for all properties. Following this we would advise the government to sit down and consult the industry over other ways to improve the home buying and selling process. The fact is that technological advances with online documentation will soon render HIPs unnecessary.

“We regret that the government did not heed our warnings over domestic energy assessors earlier on in the process as to delay at this late stage will inevitably cause problems. Many assessors have worked incredibly hard to become qualified and certified in time for June 1st. Now they have been left hanging. This is a similar situation to the one home inspectors faced last year when home condition reports were made voluntary. One has to ask how the government can expect the industry to have faith in it after being let down once again.”