Home Information Packs Suspended by the new coalition governmnet
People planning to sell their properties will no longer need home information packs (Hips), the new coalition Government has announced. Housing minister Grant Shapps said: "Today the new Government is ensuring that home information packs are history.
"This is a great example of how we are determined to get straight down to work and cut pointless red tape which is strangling the market.
"By suspending home information packs today, it means that home sellers will be able to get on with marketing their home without having to shell out hundreds of pounds upfront.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats pledged last week in their coalition agreement to get rid of the packs and keep only Energy performance certificates, which show how energy efficient a property is.
Hips were first introduced in August 2007 for properties with four or more bedrooms in England and Wales, before being gradually rolled out across the rest of the market.
They aimed to reduce the amount of time it took to buy and sell a home by providing buyers with more of the information they needed up front, such as local authority searches.
