NAEA reaffirms stance on scrapping HIPs

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) has reaffirmed its stance over scrapping the controversial home information pack (HIPs) legislation following fierce criticism over the Communities and Local Government’s (CLG) handling of the Packs by its own select committee.

In the second report of session 2007-08 published today the committee accused the CLG of failing to deliver over HIPs, which were supposed to be a ‘key priority’ for the department in 2007. A number of reasons were identified for this, with failure to engage effectively with stakeholders being cited as one major factor.

Peter Bolton King, Chief Executive at the NAEA, comments: “We certainly cannot argue with this point. Time and time again we urged the government to listen to us and take our concerns seriously. We made our feelings clear both privately and publicly so there can have been no doubt what our concerns were and why we had them. Somehow, though, the CLG managed not to take any of it in. We are extremely keen to help the government find ways of improving the home buying and selling process in the UK, but we will not support a piece of legislation that we believe is ineffective, or worse – that is detrimental to the market and consumers.”

As part of its report, the select committee highlighted the ‘conditions of the market’ as being one of the three reasons given by the government for the late and phased implementation. Spokesperson Mr Housden was quoted as blaming ‘general conditions’ in part for the delay, saying that it was this reason which ‘held ministers back’.

Peter Bolton King comments: “To hear the government say this now is very confusing as it was never given to us a reason at the time. We were always told it was a lack of domestic energy assessors that was causing the delay. If it had really been about the market then the CLG should have held off doing anything at all in case the already fragile conditions were affected further. As it was, the department pushed ahead with the three phases of the Packs despite being presented with evidence by ourselves and RICS that HIPs were having a negative effect. It did not seem to be so concerned about market conditions at that point.

“We have always wanted to see improvements in the buying and selling process but have consistently said HIPs are not the answer. It’s just a shame that the government has not paid attention to the concerns of the industry up to now. This whole mess could have been avoided if it had.”