Hip view (Home Information Packs and Energy Performance Certificates EPC

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.