Home Information Pack implementation set to be delayed

With the House of Lords set to debate Home Information Packs on Tuesday, it is expected that Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly will announce that the start date for the controversial information packs will be delayed. The HIPs were set to go into effect in England and Wales on 1 June, and would have required anyone selling a home to provide the package of information that was to include evidence of title, copies of building consents, a local search, guarantees for any work done on the property and, most controversially, an energy performance certificate. The packs were expected to cost the seller a minimum of £300 to assemble.

The delay in implementing the packs comes after a legal challenge from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors that resulted in a judge suggesting that the energy certificate element be left out of the packs “for the time being.” Critics of the packs said that the expense would be big for the seller of the property, that there were not enough trained technicians to carry out the energy audits required for the certificates, and that the information contained in the packs would not be of much help to buyers. The energy certificate requirement was included to comply with a European Union directive that becomes operative in 2009, and has been supported by a number of environmental groups, including the Friends of the Earth and WWF-UK.

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