Hip view (Home Information Packs and Energy Performance Certificates EPC

Mike Ockenden, Director General, Association of Home Information Pack Providers (AHIPP), responds to new research into the flouting of HIP regulations:

“Research suggesting that half of all housing transactions are taking place without a completed HIP in place is simply not true. We have strong statistical evidence that compliance with the legislation is now running at over 95% and by working with local trading standards officers we are currently taking action to drive compliance from the remaining 5%.

“Further, there is an acceptance among trading standards officers that the clarity provided by 6th April regulation changes will allow them to now start issuing fining notices, where relevant.

“Grant Shapps has said that he is not suggesting people break the law and yet the tenor of his comments seem to almost incite agents to do just that. This is dangerous territory and estate agents are well advised not to jump on a non-existent bandwagon of non-compliance.

“We understand Grant Shapps to have said he is pragmatic and not dogmatic in his approach to housing matters - this needs to include HIPs. We look forward to working with Mr Shapps to demonstrate this is the case.”

According to the Foi act Freedom Of Information Act. Any company or organisation holding information on behalf of local authorities is governed by the act and is subject to the same rules of disclosure.

This applies to the water companies which hold the rateable values of properties which was passed to them by the local authorities to enable them to work out the water charges on domestic properties.

I have written to United Utilities asking for the rateable value of properties in their area giving them twenty working days to respond as per the rules. They did not reply. I wrote again. They have not replied.

The reason I want this information is because it is a question on the Con29 DW and helps me to produce a personal drains report so I can see why they would not want to reply and supply this information.

I may have to take them to court to get this information. I did it once before and won and I am quite prepared to do it again.

Deceitful Local Authorities and water companies force up the cost of HIPs.

Since April 6th The local authority in our area, Wirral, Merseyside and indeed nationwide have been given the right to set their own charges for access to information that private search companies use to create searches for inclusion in Home Information Packs, ( HIPs ) and for conveyancing, As you would expect this has resulted in local authorities in general increasing their prices and therefore the price of a Home Information Pack ( HIP ) has gone up so the poor old consumer has to pay more. What is more at the same time they have restricted access to the information. The councils have made such a cock up of the pricing structure and the administration of their new systems for access that the lead times for producing searches has gone out to as much as six weeks. That is almost as bad as it was before private search companies such as Pali came along and through force of competition forced them to get their acts together. This new guidance has given the local authorities a golden opportunity to restrict that competition and allow themselves to drift back into the old ways of poor service and high prices. The main culprit for this chaos is the CLG, (Communities and Local Government office,) who claimed it would lead to a “level playing field”. One wonders how their head works when councils have free access to the information yet charging the private sector and restricting access leads to a level playing field. Of course the CLG represents the local authorities and is not independent.

The private search companies have a couple of test cases lodged with the Information Commissioners Office to see if the information required is environmental and therefore should be free to access. Confidence of this office being independent took a knock recently. There was a definition on the ICO website of what constituted environmental information which included “the built environment”. Since we lodged our test cases this phrase has mysteriously been deleted. When the ICO was challenged on this we were told not to read anything sinister into this. Yeh right.

Some of the charges being made are downright illegal and private search companies, such as Pali are having success in challenging restricted access and illegal charging.

IPSA (Independent Personal Search Agents) have commissioned Taylor Emmett solicitors to spearhead the challenge to these restrictive practices. Prior to being allowed to charge for information some councils held the information on the internet or computers with free access to the public. Most have since removed these facilities thereby flouting the aims of government in rapidly moving towards the free electronic dissemination of information. Finally to compound these anti competitive measures the water companies jumped on the band wagon. All water companies provided Drains and Water reports at a price but had to give access to the information contained in the reports to the public. They saw a golden goose when they were made compulsory in the Hips so took steps to ensure that private search companies could not gain access to the information by lobbying to have more questions added which were not in the public domain. If it wasn’t so bloody deceitful it would make you laugh. Pity we cannot vote these bums out as well.

Nick Small Pali Ltd.

In a case that will have a bearing on the UK ICO decission regarding the current claims by search companies that all information required to produce local searches is environmental and should be free the Dutch Council of State ruled that Amsterdam City cannot charge for the reuse of information.

More about the Court decision:

The Judicial Division of the Dutch Council of State (Raad van State), the highest Administrative Court in the Netherlands, on 29 April 2009 published a ruling on the public sector information re-use case Landmark versus City of Amsterdam.

The Court rejected the appeal lodged by the City for high compensation costs for supplying information costs for supplying environmental information to real estate agents for the benefit of home owners and home buyers through Landmark Nederland’s Milieuscan environmental reports service.

The dispute between Landmark and the City concerns the question whether the City could attach a number of conditions and limitations to the reuse of the data by Landmark. Two conditions must be fulfilled: there must be a database and the government agency must be the producer of that database.

The Court ruled that, while the data form a database because there has been a substantial investment, the City of Amsterdam does not bear the risk of this substantial investment, and is therefore not a producer of the database. Consequently the City is not entitled to attach the excessive (financial) conditions and limitations to the reuse of the data by Landmark.

More about Landmark:

Landmark Nederland is part of Landmark Information Group Ltd which is a Daily Mail and General Trust Group company. Landmark provides over 1 million environmental and of land use reports a year for homebuyers and property professionals in Europe. Landmark operates in Germany via its company based in Dortmund, Inframation AG.

Charges for access to publicly held information

As most of you will now be aware, since 6^th April and in some cases before this date councils have been charging for access to information held on behalf of the public.

The charging rules state that councils should only charge for costs directly incurred in providing the refined data, not for access, and only on a cost recovery basis. In most cases this actually means that councils could not charge for access to the information, which is what search companies want. To get round this many councils are only making the information available in refined state. They then think that this entitles them to charge for access to the information. In fact they are miss interpreting the rules as they cannot under any circumstances charge for access only for providing the information. Further to this many are providing a one stop shop and providing print outs of the information, adding an administration charge to the cost of the information. This again is against the rules for charging as the cost of providing the information is in fact an administration charge. When Pali asked to see the profit and lose accounts of the land charges departments of various councils they all showed a profit. As the charges should be on a cost recovery basis this is also against the rules as there is no cost to recover. It is quite illuminating when the cost are provided as the councils load every thing they can think of onto the cost of providing the information to the extent that Wirral even list pension contributions, holiday pay and one hundred pounds car allowance for desk bound staff. How they can contribute to the cost of providing access to information when they have retired or are on holiday I don’t know. They have so far not provided the income. The highest legal opinion available currently considers that most if not all the information required to complete a personal search is environmental and therefore should be free to access. Pali’s challenge on this point is currently with the Information Commissioner and Pali is keeping a record of all the illegal charges it is paying. When the ICO rules that the information is environmental Pali will be claiming all the monies back together with damages. Watch this space.

Since the new regulations came into effect on 6th April 2009 making it compulsory for Local Authorities to give access to property information, there has been a vast spectrum of systems and charges created by Local Authorities to cope. The procedures set out by councils enabling people to gain access to the information range from the very simple, e.g. turn up at a building, sit at a computer, record the information and leave, to the most complicated systems imaginable. Likewise the charges also differ massively ranging from, free to over three hundred pounds.

In many cases the job of accessing this information has now become almost impossible and we have created this post to enable you to leave comments on your findings with specific Local Authorities either good or bad. Please click the button below to either view comments left by others or post a new one. It will help if you name the council, but please be certain that your statement is correct.

Unbelievably with only two weeks to go until 6th April many Local Authorities have still not released their pricing structure for access to Con 29 data. As this affects the whole of the property market, it is truly astounding that they have been allowed to do this.

From 6th April, a residential property can not be marketed until the majority of a Home Information Pack ( HIP )  is in place. If by this time the remaining councils still have not released their pricing structures the housing market could be thrown into chaos. How can you order a HIP if you or your supplier don’t know how much it will cost?

Is this a deliberate move by councils to cause disruption within the Personal Search and Home Information Pack industry or are they simply so inefficient that they cannot meet governments deadlines even with months of prior notice?

Many estate agents are concerned about the effects of the removal of the first day marketing concession which allowed a home to be marketed as soon as a Hip was ordered and formal arrangements for payment had been confirmed. This was widely abused and many estate agents did not order a Hip until an offer had been made and the buyers solicitor asked for a copy. This is largely why this concession was removed. The fear now is that it may take so long to obtain the required documents that days if not weeks will pass before the property can be marketed. We put these points to Nick Small of Pali.Ltd  His reply;

Fear not. The documents which need to be in place can all be provided by Pali before the estate agent can create the sales particulars. These are, The Index of the contents of the Hip. This will cause problems for some Hip providers as it has to be updated as the items are received. On the HipView site this will happen automatically as the documents are uploaded. The Sale Statement, completed on HipView at the time of placing the order. Title Deeds and Plan. Provided by Pali within minutes. EPC. Dependent on access by the vendor but could be same day. PIQ completed by vendor on line at HipView or taken to the client by the DEA. Confirmation of arrangements for payment. Pali will take payment on behalf of the agent by cheque, cash or card online, by phone, at their various offices or at the vendors property by arrangement. Deferred payment is available. So in summary all the agent has to do is say to the client, “we will be delighted to market your Home but first you need a hip. Phone Pali on 0151 691 1170, discuss when you can give access to the property and how you want to pay and we will start on the sales pariculars right now.” That’s it, no delay.

Nick Small.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has stated that the resumption of new mortgage lending by Northern Rock will hopefully help to ease the continuing lack of supply of mortgage lending to the market. Northern Rock was a significant lender before nationalisation, and its previous strategy of balance sheet reduction inevitably meant that in having to absorb business from borrowers remortgaging away from Northern Rock, other lenders had less funding available for other lending.

CML director general Michael Coogan commented:

“While other lenders will no doubt be watching carefully to assess the competitive impacts of Northern Rock returning to the market as an active mortgage lender, in overall market terms anything that improves the supply of lending is a positive.

“Mortgage redemptions funded nearly all the £18 billion of the loan that Northern Rock repaid to the government. This was £18 billion that had to be absorbed by the rest of the other mortgage lenders. By removing this market pressure, other lenders as well as Northern Rock should experience an increased capacity to lend to other borrowers.”

On the other topical question of 100%+ mortgages in the wake of the Prime Minister’s article in yesterday’s Observer, the CML says there are side issues to consider that should not get lost, despite the inherent appeal of a simple policy such as this to mitigate risk and encourage responsible borrowing. In particular, what about negative equity products for borrowers who want to move house but whose own house price has fallen? What about shared equity loans made to the affordable housing sector, where borrowers are not asked to pay a deposit? And what about the fact that people may simply “top up” their borrowing with second mortgages or other unsecured loans on more expensive terms? These issues all need to be considered in deciding the right regulatory approach to 100%+ mortgages in the future.

The Government has today unveiled plans to reduce household carbon emissions to almost zero by the year 2050 through a combination of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.

The Heat and Energy Saving Strategy has been published for consultation today by DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change) and CLG (Communities and Local Government), and includes proposals for:

· Rolling out low-cost home energy audits, developing a qualification for energy advisers, and establishing an accreditation scheme for installers.

· Finance packages to install energy efficiency measures and low-carbon heat and power sources would be offered to householders. Repayment from part of the savings on energy bills would be linked to the property, rather than residents.

· Combined with guaranteed cash payments by way of a Renewable Heat Incentive and a Feed-in Tariff for small scale electricity generation, the payback for homeowners who switch to low-carbon technologies and save energy would start from day one.

· Options for improving the delivery of energy efficiency advice and measures, including establishing a central coordinating body funded by energy companies and working to Government-set targets.

Commenting on today’s announcements, deputy managing director Austin Baggett said:

“We already have a great vehicle on which to deliver these plans – the Energy Performance Certificate. We also have a highly trained work force of qualified and accredited energy assessors. It is encouraging that Government has recognised the importance of both of these in their proposals.

“However, we now need to quickly develop a far more detailed plan for how energy advice is to be provided and, crucially, how it is to be funded. Energy assessors will need to receive funding to pay for any top-up training they need and funding will also be required to subsidise the cost of providing the energy advice. We also need fiscal incentives to persuade householders to take action on the advice that they receive – we cannot simply rely on people ‘to do the right thing’. Government should be bold and use differential rates on both stamp duty and council tax to encourage householders to act.”

Click on the link below to go to the DECC website and see the Consultation on Heat and Energy Saving Strategy:

http://www.decc.gov.uk/consultations/index.htm

NB: Two other consultation documents were also published today: The Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) consultation and the Community Energy Savings Programme (CESP) consultation.