You are in HIPs
A Home Information Pack is a collection of documents relating to various aspects of your Property. Before HIPs were introduced, these documents were needed by your Solicitor when the Property sold. Now, they are needed by your Estate Agent, when they are marketing the Property, and by your Solicitor.
A bit about each section of the HIP, and the documents that make up that section follow:
HIP Index
This is a list of all the documents that make up the HIP & the dates of those documents. Also, any additional information relating to the documents is provided here.
Energy Performance Certificate
An Energy Performance Certificate is prepared after a Domestic Energy Assessor carries out an inspection of your Property. The purpose of this inspection is to calculate how Energy Efficient and Environmentally Friendly your Property is. The certificate is drawn up, detailing the costs of running your property, how much Carbon Dioxide it produces per year, a summary of how certain features of your property affect its rating and measures that can be adopted to save money and improve the properties energy efficiency.
Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ)
The Government has announced further changes to the Home Information Pack (HIP) regime, which will come into force from 6th April 2009.
A ‘Property Information Questionnaire’ (PIQ) will now become a required document which must be included in the HIP.
The PIQ will provide basic, useful information about a property including such as information on flooding, parking arrangements, central heating and electrical wiring, any alterations to the property and a summary of the lease, if any.
The current arrangement whereby a copy of the lease is the only additional requirement in the HIP for leasehold property sales is a permanent requirement.
The so called 'first day marketing' exemption is being removed from 6 April 2009. Thus a basic HIP must be in place before a property is marketed.
Changes to the content of the Local Search will mean that insurance will not be available for “missing information”. This information has always been available, but at extra cost.
Most personal search agents have not included the information in their search reports. The cost of this component of the HIP is likely to increase the overall cost of the HIP.
Sale Statement
The Sale Statement is a summary of various issues relating to the sale of the Property. This details the Name of the seller, whether they own the property or are selling with correct Authority for another owner, the Tenure of the Property and whether or not the Property is Registered with Land Registry. For a Leasehold Property, this also states how much or the Leasehold Term remains.
Title Evidence & Title Plan
This section of the HIP contains documents to prove ownership of the Property, and a Plan detailing the extent of the boundaries of the property. This evidence is either provided by the Individual Register & Title Plan, obtained from HM Land Registry, if the Property is registered, or in the case of Unregistered Property, by the preparation of an Epitome of Title, by a Solicitor. An Epitome of title is an index of documents within your title deeds, and copies of those documents, going back long enough to prove property ownership. If the seller is acting as an Executor for a deceased estate, or an Attorney for a living owner, the Grant of Probate of Power of Attorney will be found in this section.
Local Authority Search
This section contains two documents, both obtained from the Local Authority in which the property resides. The LLC1 details registrations relating to the land the property is situated on, in the Register of Local Land Charges. The Parts of the register record:
- Part 1 - General financial charges
- Part 2 - Specific financial charges
- Part 3 - Planning charges
- Part 4 - Miscellaneous charges
- Part 5 - Fenland ways maintenance charges
- Part 6 - Land compensation charges
- Part 7 - New towns charges
- Part 8 - Civil aviation charges
- Part 9 - Opencast coal charges
- Part 10 - Listed buildings charges
- Part 11 - Light obstruction notices
- Part 12 - Drainage scheme charges
The CON29R details issues relating to the property including Planning & Building Regulations, roads in the vicinity, planned major roadworks and infrastructure charges nearby, public health notices, and whether the property is in a radon affected area.
Water & Drainage Search
This search is obtained from the Water Company or companies that deal with the fresh and waste water of the property. This details fresh and waste water courses in the area, and supplies information on water quality, and flow pressure, as well as billing and costs.
Lease & Freehold Title
If the property is leasehold, we obtain the Lease from HM Land Registry, which details a variety of right and powers of the developer, the freehold owner, the leasehold owner and/or Management Company, in respect of the leasehold property. We also include the Freehold Register & Plan, as although it is not a compulsory document, it includes various useful pieces of information for a potential purchaser.
Other Documents
Other documents may be included in the HIP. These are what are called in the legislation 'authorised' documents, rather that 'compulsory' documents, as listed above. Therefore, if you provide them to us, we will include them in the HIP, but we will not delay the preparation of the HIP waiting for these. These include guarantees for any works carried out on the house, Building Regulations Completion Certificates and could be any document you feel would be useful to a potential buyer. If you send us a copy, we will include it in the HIP.
