Insurance News Archive

Hips 'not being used'

Home information packs (Hips) are not being used at all and are an administrative burden according to one real estate provider.

The Hips, which have been obligatory on all residential properties since December 14th are simply not being asked for according to Lucian cook, director of research at Savills.

He said: "The general conclusion is that they are not really being used at all. The story that we are getting back from our agents is that they are just sitting in the filing cabinets."

At the top end of the market, he pointed out that solicitors did not want to trust surveys carried out by other people.

Furthermore despite recent research by environmental consultant Hyder Consulting suggesting that 44 per cent of UK adults would use Hips' environmental and energy information to negotiate house price discounts, with 25 per cent using it as a guide to post-purchase work, Mr Cook doubted whether they were of any use.

He said: "An Energy Performance Certificate is all very well but how many people actually place value on it is a completely different story."

18 Dec 2007