Everything about Home Information Packs (HIPS)

This year's survey of the costs of moving home, compiled by the Woolwich, will confirm what home buyers already suspect: it has become a seriously expensive business.

New government legislation means that house sellers will have to produce information packs for buyers.

The government is concerned that many house purchases fall through because of the time it takes to get to completion. Where there is a chain of buyers and sellers, just one person pulling out can ruin a whole series of purchases, costing all those involved money, time and patience.

Television presenters Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer today threw their weight behind a campaign calling for the introduction of Home Information Packs (HIPs) to be scrapped.

Home information packs

Tory Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater) called for the government's home information packs scheme to be scrapped. He said the scheme, under which sellers would have to provide information including a home condition report when marketing their property, would waste tens of millions of pounds but would create big VAT returns for the Treasury. His housing act (amendment) bill gained its first reading but stands no chance of becoming law.