Centuries of British tradition has been swept away because a builder was just too cheeky. Robert Fidler (real name), 60, secretly built his dream home and cunningly hid it behind tarpaulin, disguising it as a haystack. He lived in it for four years. It was a flagrant attempt to take advantage of a loophole in local planning regulations which, in theory, means that buildings erected without permission to be declared legal if no objections are made after four years.

He even allowed a TV programme to be made about the castle.

But a judge in the High Court ruled that the building, near Redhill, Surrey was unlawful and that Fidler could not benefit from his deception. The castle, its conservatory, marquee, bridge, patio, decking and tarmac racecourse (yes really) will now be knocked down.
“This was a blatant attempt to flout the law,” said a spokesman for Reigate and Banstead Borough Council. Mr Fidler will of course, appeal.

No Sale No Fee HIPs – Free HIP if your Home Does Not Sell Within 9 Months

No Sale No Fee Home Information Packs are now available from Pali via Hipview.

Pali have been offering a deferred payment option now on Home Information Packs ordered through Hipview for over 12 months. You can now add an insurance policy to the deferred payment solution meaning that should the property remain on the market in excess of 9 months the HIP won’t cost a penny.

If you or your client choose the No Sale No Fee option when ordering the Home Information Pack the only initial cost will be £30. If the property sells within 9 months the HIP is payable on completion, but if it remains on the market for longer than nine months then any direct costs incurred for the HIP can be claimed back and what’s more, the HIP should still be valid.

For more information please telephone 0151 691 1170 or email nick@paliltd.com

Terms and Conditions:

There are some key conditions to the policy which should noted:
• The HIP Provider/ Estate Agent must note any recommendation to alter the sale price of the property made by the Estate Agent and Seller
• The Seller must comply with any advice given by the Estate Agent to reduce the price of the property and may not reject two or more offers within 90% of the asking price
• The HIP Provider/Estate Agent must note the rejection of any offer made on the property
• The property must be continually marketed during the period of insurance
• The property must be kept in a good state of repair
• The Property is a single private residential house or flat which is build complete at the order date.
• The Home Information Pack for which this cover is required has been produced in accordance with the relevant Home Information Pack Regulations.
• The Seller is not aware of any matter which could lead to a claim under the Policy.

A full set of Terms and Conditions will be provided with the Insurance Guarantee and are also available on request, or by clicking here.

For more information please contact your local Pali office or email: nick@paliltd.com or telephone 0151 691 1170 or visit our webpage.

Grant Shapps, the “campaigner” has carried out yet another PR stunt. This time he wrapped a house in red tape in an attempt to highlight the bureaucracy of the home information packs.

The owners of the home, David and Helen Wright, where apparently released from their “red tape hell” by the hero Shapps. Apparently they went on to sell their house due to the publicity received; I bet they had no complaints about the speedy completion process.

Hips 1 – Shapps 0.

Some of you may remember previous Shapps Stunts. He slept homeless on the streets in London on Christmas Eve in London to highlight the problems of the homeless, well Mr Shapps it is a shame that did not solve the problem of homelessness and scrapping the HIP’s will not solve the Recession.

With buy now pay nothing until completion Hips that are exchange ready from PALI the house selling and purchasing process has never been so quick and cheap. Hips are floored, they need fixing, not scrapping.

 

 

There has been a lot of talk from the Conservative party about scrapping Home Information Packs if and when they are elected.

Pali has been providing Conveyancing Searches to Solicitors and Property Professionals since 1999. With the introduction of Home Information Packs in 2007 their client base expanded to include HIP Providers, Estate Agents and members of the public. The website Hipview was set up to assist people in the ordering, tracking, viewing and storing of Home Information Packs.

While the company has changed to accommodate the new legislation of the Home Information Packs, it is not reliant on them. However it is Pali’s opinion that they should not be scrapped, but instead worked on to improve them and fulfil the function they were originally put in place to do.

The main objectives of the HIPs should be:

• To give potential buyers information upfront on properties they are considering purchasing.
• To speed up the conveyancing process.
• To cut down on duplication of reports being purchased by multiple potential buyers.
• To give all interested parties information of energy consumption and CO2 emissions, indicating where financial savings on fuel bills can be made and reducing climate change.

Taking these points into consideration, improvements could be made certainly on the first two. The Home Information Pack was originally intended to include a condition rating on the property in the form of a Home Condition Report. In Pali’s opinion this was the most important and useful element of the pack for potential purchasers. When the Labour Government decided to make this document optional it seriously damaged the pack. If the Home Condition Report, or another similar survey was re-introduced as a required component, in Pali’s opinion, the packs would be of much more interest to potential purchasers and save hundreds of pounds on wasted surveys.
Home Information Packs have undoubtedly all ready speeded up the conveyancing process, however it doesn’t go far enough. With the implementation of an Exchange Ready HIP, the conveyancing process could be much quicker. The Exchange Ready HIP would have a lot more information added to the HIP which would normally be enquiries made by the purchasers solicitor once sale was agreed. Other documents can also be included such as fixtures and contents forms, draft contract, the Property Information Form etc. It would be advisable that the Exchange Ready pack be produced in association with a Solicitor, however AHIPP are currently working on a form, the PDQ, which would cover most of this information.

Simply implementing both of the above points would make the Home Information Pack a much more worthwhile product, but they are by no means the only improvements which could be made. What is certain is scrapping the HIPs completely would be a mistake, with a little more work all of the time and effort which has brought the packs to this point would not be wasted. In scrapping them and going back to the drawing board the added expense would be phenomenal. One thing most people are agreed on is the process buying and selling of property needs improving and information upfront seems to be the best way to achieve this goal.

Your comments are welcome.

CALL 0151 691 1170

Need to get your property on the market fast and don’t want to be slowed down by the Home Information Pack regulations? Pali can supply you with the HIP components that must be in place before a residential property can be marketed very quickly.

A property cannot be legally marketed until the following elements of a Home Information Pack are in place:
Index
Sale Statement
Property Information Questionnaire
Land Registry Office Copy & Title Plan (Registered Properties)
Search of the Index Map Register (Unregistered Properties)
Energy Performance Certificate.

Pali’s online systems mean that the majority of the above will be in place usually within an hour or so of the order being taken. As long as the Energy Assessor is able to gain access to the property immediately there should be no reason there is a delay in marketing your home.

Orders for Home Information Packs can be placed by CLICKING HERE or telephoning 0151 691 1170.

Telephone 0151 691 1170

The current economic climate has caused many companies to go out of business. Home Information Pack providers have been affected by this more so as they are linked directly to the property industry and many were new companies set up when the HIP regulations were introduced.

The result of these HIP companies closing has been that many property vendors have either lost or never received the Home Information Packs they have paid for.

Pali have been providing conveyancing searches, the core elements of the HIP, since 1999. In 2007 Pali launched their website Hipview which enabled Hips to be ordered and stored in one place.

Hipview is available for anyone to use. If you have recently purchased a HIP, or are considering doing so, be sure to insist that your HIP Provider used Hipview to store the final product. As all of the HIPs on Hipview are stored and archived on secure servers located in the North West of England, you can rest assured that if your HIP Provider disappears, your HIP won’t. Every Home Information Pack stored on Hipview has a unique security PIN (Property Identification Number) and URL, for quick and easy access.

Alternatively you can order your full Home Information Pack from Pali. Simply Click Here or telephone
0151 691 1170.

Check before you buy, before you dig.

Pali are please to announce the launch of their new Development Packs. The packs can provide potential purchasers, or their solicitors, information regarding areas of land which are intended for development.

The components of the packs can be tailored to suite your requirements, but the basic components are:

Sewer/Drains & Water Mains Location
Electrical Apparatus Location
Gas Apparatus Location
BT Apparatus Location
Virgin Media Apparatus Location
Cable & Wireless Apparatus Location

Prices for the above start at £415.00 inc VAT.

Additional/Optional components include:

Local Authority Search from £88.53 inc VAT
Groundsure Review <5 Hectares £258.75 inc VAT
Groundsure Planview <15 Hectares £115.00 inc VAT

Depending upon location you may require various mining searches such as

Coal and Cheshire Brine: £80.00 inc VAT
Tin/ Metalliferous Mining Search from £55.00 inc VAT
China Clay/Ball Clay Search £66.40
Limestone Search £50.00
British Gypsum Mining Search £53.00

Be-spoke packs available on request.

Once construction has started, Pali will be happy to deal with your Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) Reports, On-Construction Energy Assessments and Home Information Pack requirements.

For more information please telephone 0151 691 1170 or email nick@paliltd.com

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.”

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.

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?