Hip view (Home Information Packs and Energy Performance Certificates EPC

In 2009 allegations were made of malpractice within the Personal Search Industry. The allegations were mainly made by opponents of the industry and were that the reports prepared by Personal Search Companies were inferior in quality to council searches and more widespread concern that certain firms were knowingly not buying all the required data or failing to access legitimate sources of information. In October, November and December 2009 the PCCB (Property Codes Compliance Board) carried out thorough investigations of its Code Subscribers with regards to these allegations.

Frank Finch of the PCCB today made the following statement:

‘In summary, the enquiry found no evidence to support the allegation of widespread non-compliance. Rather it confirmed that the searches sampled were substantially compliant with the relevant regulations and with the Search Code.’

A total of 58 searches, comprising 900 questions were scrutinised, with errors being found in just 3% of answers and none of these related to the substantive allegations that data was either missing or inappropriate data was being used.

Finch went on to comment on the errors by saying that they

‘Appear to result from a lack of diligence rather than deliberate attempts to short-circuit the provisions in the Code. This is borne out by the fact that these failings featured in searches conducted by both personal search firms and local authorities in roughly equal measure.’

In fact, over half of all errors or omissions identified in the exercise related to local authority reports.

This goes to prove that Council Searches are no more reliable than those provided by firms who subscribe to the Search Code.

As you are probably aware the VAT rate will be increasing back to 17.5% from 1st January 2010. Our prices will therefore be increased where applicable. In addition to this some Local Authorities are increasing their Land Charges fees.

To see how the price of the Local Authority Search in your area will be affected please: CLICK HERE

The new prices of our most popular additional searches will be:

£55.00 - Residential Drainage and Water Searches
£  7.53 - HMLR Office Copy Registers and Title Plans
£33.50 - Copy of Lease
£49.00 - Groundsure Residential Environmental Report (Home Buyers Review)
£39.84 - Residential Coal Mining and Cheshire Brine Search
£23.50 - ChancelCheck Search 

All prices above are inclusive of VAT

For a full price list please contact your local Pali office or email jo@paliltd.com

Another week and another victory for PALI in their continuing struggle to gain their legally entitled access to environmental information. The Basildon office of PALI (Property And Land Information) lodged a second complaint, this time against Tendring District Council for refusing access to Building Control records and charging to provide the information. In line with their previous complaint against Maldon Council, Jeremy Tyler of the Basildon office complained that Tendring were operating restrictive practices as the information he was requesting access to was environmental and should be available to the public free of charge under European law. The council disputed this and continued to refuse access to the information. Jeremy went as far as he could with internal complaints and during lengthy email exchanges, Tendring re-iterated its refusal so Jeremy reported the council to The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) which rules on these matters.

The ICO contacted the Council giving them ample time to change their mind, which the Council refused to do, therefore, inline with two similar cases that the ICO has ruled on, it was expected that the ruling would be in line with these previous rulings. That is in fact what happened and the ruling was in favour of PALI and against firstly Maldon and now Tendring.

This latest decision by the ICO can be read on this blog CLICKING HERE.

In summary the decision was that the information requested was environmental and access should be freely available at a point designated for that purpose and within a reasonable time scale.

Jeremy Tyler, Director of PALI Basildon said, “This may be the battle won but not the war, it is going to take time to get all councils complying with the law, this is an abuse of power and we will do all we can to ensure that councils work within its remit and do not abuse their powers.”

Decision Notice

In the continuing struggle by personal search companies to gain their legally entitled access to environmental information, the Basildon office of PALI (Property And Land Information) lodged a complaint against Maldon Council for refusing access to Building Control records and charging to provide information contained there in. Jeremy Tyler of the Basildon office complained that Maldon were operating restrictive practices as the information he was requesting access to was environmental and should be available to the public free of charge. The council disputed this and continued to refuse access to the information. Jeremy requested that his complaint be entered into the councils complaints review process. Maldon re-iterated its refusal so Jeremy reported the council to The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) which rules on these matters.

As the ICO had already ruled on two similar cases it was expected that the ruling would be in line with these previous rulings. That is in fact what happened and the ruling was in favour of PALI and against Maldon.
The full report and decision by the ICO can be read on this blog by
clicking here. In summary the decision was that the information requested was environmental and access should be freely available at a point designated for that purpose and within a reasonable time scale.

Nick Small of Pali Ltd Merseyside, The PALI head office said “This is good news for the Personal Search Companies and Home Information Pack ( HIP ) providers, We at PALI are determined to keep our prices as competitive as possible for the benefit of the consumer and our clients. The price rises imposed by the councils since April this year have had the effect of forcing up the cost of searches and Home Information Packs ( Hips )’.

The proposed doubling of the charges to access the Land Charges registers by councils in January will further drive up these cost so it is important that we make a stand against abuses of monopoly positions, restrictive practises, restraint of trade and illegal charges. Various offices of PALI have similar complaints lodged with the ICO currently and are hopeful of similar decisions. These will be reported on this blog as and when they are published.

Decision Notice

#ukgovOSS

The Information Commissioners Office has been deciding whether or not the information required for the local authority search in a Home Information Pack (Hip) or for the purchaser in the conveyancing process when buying a property or land is environmental. This is a very important issue as it reflects on the potential price of the Hip. It also has a bearing on the access to the information afforded to private search companies which have been suffering restrictions and high charges imposed by council in an effort to restrict competition from the private sector.

The ICO has decided that most if not all information required in the local search is environmental and therefore access should be free.

IPSA the trade body representing ninety five percent of private search companies has been very active in lobbying both in UK and Europe to achieve this result. Also solicitors Taylor Emmett have lodged two test cases with the ICO and Pali, Ltd also has two cases lodged for consideration which will have effected the decision arrived at by the ICO.

Christian Lister, Chairman of IPSA has issued a summary of the ICO ruling which makes interesting reading. See below. It remains to be seen how obstructive the local authorities will be but history shows us that they do not generally take notice of rules that don’t suit them.

Essentially the ICO guidance confirms the following:

• The majority of the information provided by local authorities in response to property search enquiries is likely to be environmental information as defined by the EIR.
• The charging provisions in the CPSR (Local Authorities (England)(Charges for Property Searches) Regulations 2008) do not apply to environmental information.
• Under the EIR a public authority should accept an applicant’s request to inspect the information.
• Environmental information that is inspected by the applicant cannot be charged for.
• Public authorities cannot use the publication scheme provisions of the FOIA to charge for environmental information contained in property search records.
• Information that is not environmental should be considered under the FOIA. In such cases, the CPSR can form the basis for any charging.

With regard to non-environmental property search information the ICO have said “Although much of the information provided in response to property enquiries will be environmental in nature, there may be some which is not… However, we recognise that for an authority to consider each CON29 question in order to establish whether the information is subject to the EIR or the FOIA has the potential to be an overly bureaucratic process. In light of this guidance, an authority may therefore wish to adopt a policy of making all the property search information available on the basis of the principles set out in the EIR.”

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.

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?

The definition of a monopoly is:
“In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos, alone or single + polein, to sell) exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it. Monopolies are thus characterised by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods. The verb “monopolise” refers to the process by which a firm gains persistently greater market share than what is expected under perfect competition.”

The Consultation Paper for Local Authorities (Charges for Property Searches) (England and Wales) has now been passed. The paper can be viewed by CLICKING HERE, the regulations can be viewed HERE and the costing and charging guidance HERE. The big question is however will the Local Authorities adhere to the law? The initial indications are some of them already are not.

‘Cost recovery’ regulations were introduced in 2007 for the LLC1. Previously the LLC1 had a national price of £6.00, however the Government gave councils permission to charge whatever they liked (as long as it was on a cost recovery basis). Many took the opportunity to drastically increase their prices, some in excess of £50.00. As personal search companies often purchased the LLC1 as part of their search, many speculated that this was an underhand way to manipulate Government regulations by local authorities to try and damage personal search companies and potentially put them out of business. There is a growing concern within the personal search industry that the same thing will happen again with the new charging regulations.

Most councils are now starting to release there new pricing structures and are charging to grant access to information required by people to enable them to produce a Personal Local Authority Search. Many are now ignoring current legislation when doing this.

The Directive 2003/4/EC Of The European Parliament And Of The Council of 28 January 2003 is a very interesting document and you can read it by CLICKING HERE. Almost all of the information contained within a Local Authority Search can be classified as environmental. The interesting sections of the Act are:

Article 1 Objectives

The objectives of this Directive are:
(a) to guarantee the right of access to environmental information held by or for public authorities and to set out the basic terms and conditions of, and practical arrangements for, its exercise; and

(b) to ensure that, as a matter of course, environmental information is progressively made available and disseminated to the public in order to achieve the widest possible systematic availability and dissemination to the public of environmental information. To this end the use, in particular, of computer telecommunication and/or electronic technology, where available, shall be promoted.

Article 3 Access to environmental information upon request

5. For the purposes of this Article, Member States shall ensure that:
(a) officials are required to support the public in seeking access to information;
(b) lists of public authorities are publicly accessible; and
(c) the practical arrangements are defined for ensuring that the right of access to environmental information can be effectively exercised, such as:
— the designation of information officers;
— the establishment and maintenance of facilities for the examination of the information required,
— registers or lists of the environmental information held by public authorities or information points, with clear indications of where such information can be found. Member States shall ensure that public authorities inform the public adequately of the rights they enjoy as a result of this Directive and to an appropriate extent

And

Article 5 Charges

1. Access to any public registers or lists established and maintained as mentioned in Article 3(5) and examination in situ of the information requested shall be free of charge.

Another interesting piece of legislation is Freedom of Information Environmental Protection The Environmental Information Regulations 2004. Again CLICK HERE to view it.

I would like to draw your attention to:

Charging

     8.  - (1) Subject to paragraphs (2) to (8), where a public authority makes environmental information available in accordance with regulation 5(1) the authority may charge the applicant for making the information available.

(2) A public authority shall not make any charge for allowing an applicant –
(a) to access any public registers or lists of environmental information held by the public authority; or

(b) to examine the information requested at the place which the public authority makes available for that examination.

All pretty straightforward and undisputable.

Finally now, The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued guidance to help public authorities comply with, the charging regime laid out in Regulation 8 of the Environmental Information Regulations, and in particular what constitutes a reasonable amount. This report can be viewed HERE. The overview of the document states:

• The EIR allow public authorities to charge for making environmental information available, but any such charge must be reasonable.
• In general a reasonable charge is one that covers the actual costs incurred by the public authority in producing the information.
• No charge can be made for inspection of the information or for accessing public registers or lists of environmental information.

The report continues on to say:
When is a charge prohibited?

As mentioned, Regulation 8(2) sets out two circumstances in which no charge can be made:

(a) Access to public registers or lists of environmental information

The intention of this provision is to help members of the public access environmental information by allowing them to see, free of charge, what information is held by a public authority.
One way to do this is for authorities to provide public registers and lists of environmental information which are easy to access and simple to use. They should also provide clear instructions on how to access the information listed. Charging for helping in this way would be incompatible with promoting the right to access environmental information.

Various companies, associations and trade bodies such as Pali, CoPSO, IPSA all intend to start challenging local authorities who make illegal charges for the supply of information to search companies required to provide the public with searches.

Further posts will be made on this blog as this story unfolds.

Telephone: 0151 691 1170

Home Information Packs have been required on New Build Properties since April 2008. There are extra documents which must be included in properties not physically complete, which are not in the standard pack. Pali have been working on a cost effective way of producing these packs for some time and can now offer substantial discounts on multiple Hips ordered on the same development. Pali can provide your Home Information Packs in full or part. We have in-house SAP Assessors who can provide your Predictive Energy Performance Certificate and also your On-Construction Energy Assessment when required. If you instruct Pali to provide your initial SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure) Report, we can offer further discounts on your Hips.
Pali have been providing Personal Local Authority Searches since 1999 and have a vast wealth of experience in the conveyancing search industry.
If you require any further information please email nick@paliltd.com or telephone 0151 691 1170.