The HIP Way To Buy And Sell Your House

They may be dithering over the date but the basics remain the same. The Home Improvement Pack - love it or hate it, make sure you understand it.

Selling a house but stopped in your stride by the new H.I.P. legislation? A new guide to understanding it all will get you moving smoothly again.

All home owners will have been keeping a keen eye on the progress of the Home Improvement Pack, H.I.P. The new legislation which will ultimately be passed down by New Labour will dictate that anyone wanting to put their property on the market must first fork out for a H.I.P. The H.I.P., which must include an Energy Performance Certificate, searches and legal documents, is expected to cost from £350 up to £1000 and must be paid for by the home owner. Failure to produce a compliant H.I.P. could attract penalty fines of up to £200 for each day that the property is marketed in breach of the regulations.

When Ruth Kelly rose from her seat in the heady heights of Westminster to pass this new legislation, set originally to start on June 1st, she omitted to ensure that there were sufficient people on the ground who were trained to assess this new procedure. There weren`t. So she has pushed the date forward to August 1st and sent a load of potential H.I.P. inspectors on a crammer course. On August 1st, however, only houses with four bedrooms plus will be bound by this new legislation, with all other houses squeezing under the same umbrella by the end of the year.

Confused? Yes, no one is surprised, least of all Sharon Buthlay who is currently being asked to attend H.I.P. training courses for Estate agencies up and down the country as she is one of the few people who are in the know about the details.

Her new book, The HIP Way to Buy and Sell Your Home, published by How To Books, will help you get ahead too.

"My book is intended to be a no-nonsense guide for the consumer on how the HIP regulations will affect the moving process, and the rights and obligations of the buyer and seller. My book is designed to give the reader the edge when buying and selling property from now on simply because it explains clearly the constraints - and the opportunities - of the Home Information Pack."

The H.I.P. Way to Buy and Sell Your House
Sharon Buthlay
ISBN 978-1-84528-152-6
Available at all good bookstores priced at £12.99