Personal searches for HIPs ‘not as good as official searches’

Savills has responded to the suggestion that some lenders will not advance loans on properties where personal – as opposed to official – searches have been obtained for a HIP and that buyers will then have to commission and pay for additional official searches.

Christopher Lacy of Savills, the director of Savills responsible for the implementation of HIPs into the residential agency business said: “It is not surprising that some lenders are wary. The Government and HIP Providers have been trying to present the case that personal searches backed by an insurance policy are as good as official searches.

“This is simply not the case. If something is wrong with the personal searches, receiving £10,000 insurance money for a reduction in value of the property is often not what the buyer wants. What is more, the buyer is stuck with the property that he or she would not have bought at all if they had been aware of the deficient issue”.

Savills has repeatedly pressed the Government; they should have waited until local Councils were all able to deliver official searches speedily and at low cost on-line before pressing headlong into HIPs”.