Press release from SPLINTA

3rd August 2008

MAJOR SURVEY SHOWS HOME INFORMATION PACKS ARE NOT WORKING.

SPLINTA CAMPAIGN CALLS FOR PACKS TO BE SCRAPPED.

A major survey of estate agents and solicitors by the SPLINTA campaign has revealed a damning picture of the ineffectiveness of the controversial Home Information Pack and highlights the damage that the pack is inflicting on an already seriously weakened residential housing market.

SPLINTA (Sellers' Pack Law is not the Answer), the leading anti-HIP lobby group, asked over 400 firms to complete the on-line survey in the last week of July 2008.

Two of the key targets set by the Government for HIPs are the speeding up of sales and a reduction in the number of abortive transactions that fall through between acceptance of an offer and exchange of contracts. 98% of respondents said HIPs are either not making any difference to the speed of sales or, worse, they are actually slowing down the process and 95% of respondents said HIPs are not helping to prevent abortive sales.

At the moment, the marketing of a property can start when the HIP is ordered but from December 2008 the Government requires that the completed pack is ready before the marketing begins. The ending of this so-called 'First Day Marketing' was postponed from last June by Housing Minister, Caroline Flint, after SPLINTA attracted over 9,500 signatures to an on-line petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website. 95% of the property professionals answering the survey are in no doubt that ending First Day Marketing would be detrimental to the property market. Only 3% thought it would make no difference.

Last week the Law Society made a statement that received very wide media coverage, alleging that some estate agents are not complying with the requirement to order a HIP before any marketing of a property begins. The SPLINTA survey shows that the requirement is restricting the potential for sales - with potentially damaging consequences for would-be sellers. Good estate agency has always thrived on being able to match a buyer and seller together at a moment's notice, particularly if the agent has valued a property that is not coming onto the market for a few weeks. If a potential buyer contacts the agent it was often possible to arrange a 'one-off' viewing with the owner but the ability to do this evaporated when HIPs came in a year ago. It is possible that the Law Society has identified a minority of agents who are so keen to try and help their clients and to make sales in these very difficult economic times that they go ahead with 'quiet marketing' or 'one-off viewings' when a client says they don't want to pay for a pack until full, open marketing begins. 92% of the firms surveyed said that having to order the HIP is a deterrent to 'quiet marketing' and 'one-off' viewings.

Asked whether the ability to carry out 'quiet marketing' and 'one-off' viewings without ordering a HIP would be likely to result in an increased volume of transactions in current market conditions, 85% said 'Yes, it would result in more sales'.

Nick Salmon, the head of SPLINTA, said: "This survey is a damning indictment of HIPs and shows that the consumer is being forced to pay for something that simply does not work. The Government contention that HIPs are a benefit to buyers is based on a small reduction in local authority search costs and the unsubstantiated assertion by one estate agency that transaction times have been reduced by a few days - out of several weeks."

"This survey shows the true picture of what practitioners dealing with property sales every day have experienced with HIPs. A year after their introduction the case against the pack is proved. It must be scrapped in order to save consumers wasting more money and to stimulate sales at a time when the property market is in its worst state of collapse since the Second World War. The Labour Government must come clean and admit that HIPs is a failed policy."


AUGUST 2008
SPLINTA SURVEY OF 420 FIRMS OF ESTATE AGENTS AND SOLICITORS - RESULTS

Are HIPs speeding up the sales transaction and conveyancing process?

Yes: 2%
No, they slow the process down: 35%
HIPs have not made any material difference: 63%
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Are HIPs helping to prevent abortive sales?

Yes: 2%
No: 95%
Not sure: 3%
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Would the ending of First Day Marketing be detrimental to the residential property market?

Yes: 95%
No: 2%
It would make no difference: 3%
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Is the requirement to have a HIP ordered, before any marketing commences, a deterrent to 'one-off' viewings or the 'quiet marketing' of a property?

Yes: 92%
No: 4%
It makes no difference: 4%
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Would the ability to conduct 'one-off' viewings or quiet marketing, without the need to order a HIP, be likely to result in an increased volume of sales transactions in the current market conditions?

Yes: 85%
No: 7%
It would make no difference: 8%

Saturday 2nd August 2008

The Law Society says estate agents are ignoring the HIP regulations but in a BBC interview Nick Salmon, head of SPLINTA explains that even if they are doing so, the consumer is not losing out because HIPs do not improve the home buying process. Read the story and watch the interview here:

Nick was also interviewed on the Today programme. Hear it here:

The Today Programme

June 16th 2008

CARSBERG REPORT HIGHLIGHTS HIP DEFICIENCIES

The Carsberg Review, commissioned by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) and the Association of Residential Letting Agents, has been published

The report claims that the introduction of Home Information Packs (HIPs) has not provided the improvements to the home buying process that were intended.

The report's author, Sir Bryan Carsberg,a former head of the Office of Fair Trading, says that HIPs should be voluntary and that house sellers should be free to choose whether or not to market their property with a pack.

The average cost of a HIP is around £250 - £350 and as the property market slows and homes take longer to sell, sellers are finding local searches in the packs are out of date before they have made their sale. This leaves buyers having to purchase new searches, thus duplicating costs instead of saving them.

Read the full report here:

CARSBERG REPORT (pdf)

June 2008

The official Government response to the SPLINTA petition has been sent to all the 9,500+ signatories. As we might have expected it is factual and utterly unhelpful. It reads:

"The temporary first day marketing provision was introduced in August 2007 in order to help smooth the implementation of HIPs while the system was bedding-in. The provision has been successful in doing this by allowing a property to be marketed without a HIP, provided that one has been commissioned, paid for, and is expected to arrive within 28 days.

On 8 May 2008, the Government announced an extension to the provision from 1 June to 31 December 2008 in order to provide a further period of flexibility. Following this period the Government expects the temporary measure to end."

SPLINTA believes it is highly unlikely that the Government will be able to end First Day Marketing next December if the property market continues its catastrophic decline over the coming months. Further, we believe that Ministers will be forced to abandon the requirement for Searches to be included in the HIP and further still we do not believe that in the forseeable future they will be able to require the inclusion of full leasehold information. The Home Information Pack will become a yet paler shadow of its former, inadequate self, limping along as the delivery vehicle for the useless energy performance certificate and costing consumers rather than benefitting them.

If you want to know why we think HIPs will have to drop searches and leasehold info just read the Beardsall Report to the Housing Minister. It was quietly slipped out on June 12th and highlights many issues that SPLINTA has been warning CLG about for several years.

BEARDSALL REPORT (pdf)

May 8th 2008

HOUSING MINISTER BOWS TO SPLINTA'S PUBLIC PETITION

Housing Minister, Caroline Flint, today announced that the concession to allow the marketing of a residential property once a Home Information Pack is ordered, is to be extended beyond the 31st May cut-off date to the end of December 2008.

Nick Salmon, head of the leading anti-HIP campaign group, SPLINTA, responded to the Communities & Local Government announcement.

"It is clear that Caroline Flint has recognised the strength of our petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website and that Home Information Packs are a complete waste of time and money. Her department can spin the supposed benefits for all they are worth but everyone involved in the day to day housing market knows they are neither preventing deals from falling through, nor speeding the home buying process. Ms Flint has had the courage to recognise that fact by extending the first day marketing concession. Now she needs to do what her predecessors have collectively failed to do and call in HIPs for a full review.

We know Brown has botched the 10p tax issue, Darling has dithered over Northern Rock - we hope Flint won't fudge the costly and useless HIP"

Click to read CLG announcement

21st May 2008. Our petition (to retain first day marketing)on the No 10 Downing Street website closed today with 9,587 signatures making it the sixth largest out of over 6,000 such petitions. The Minister clearly took account of the strength of feeling demonstrated by this volume of support when she decided to extend the first day marketing concession until December 2008. If necessary we shall run the petition again later this year. Many thanks to everyone who signed.

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13th March 2008 - THE GREAT HIPS DEBATE



Julie Madison from OneMove TV interviews Paul Broadhead of AHIPP and Nick Salmon of SPLINTA on the future of HIPs.

HIPS DEBATE

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Press Release from SPLINTA

6th March 2008

HIPS 'RESEARCH' GREETED WITH DERISION.

A press release today (6th March) from the Communities and Local Government department concerning Home Information Packs (HIPs), has been greeted with derision by the leading anti-HIP campaign group SPLINTA.

The CLG release details some of the findings of research by Ipsos MORI into the trials of HIPs carried out between November 2006 and April 2007, prior to their general introduction later in 2007. At the time the trials were heavily criticised as the publicity for, and cost of, the packs to sellers, was subsidised by CLG to the tune of some £4 million pounds. None of the results of the trials were made public before the imposition of HIPs on the entire residential property market.

Head of SPLINTA, Nick Salmon, said today that the figures quoted in the CLG press release are being used to 'spin' the supposed benefits of HIPs and paint a thoroughly misleading picture of the reality of the packs in today's market.

"CLG say 72% of sellers were satisfied with HIPs in the trial. Of course they were, as the packs costs them nothing. I'm surprised it wasn't 100%. Apparently 79% agreed that trial packs contained 'everything expected'. That is a meaningless statement as we have no idea what those sellers were expecting. 81% understood the documents including the Energy Performance Certificate. An EPC graph could be understood by a child but I don't believe that many people would understand easements, covenants and wayleaves without professional guidance, so I question just which documents these sellers were supposedly understanding."

Salmon went on to highlight a glaring omission from the CLG release.

"I find it extremely telling that this release is absolutely silent on the matter of whether or not HIPs are actually having a beneficial impact on transactions times and fall through rates in property sales - which was the original goal before saving the planet took priority. In case they have not got that far in their analysis of the trial, let me tell the Minister what is happening in the real world today. HIPs are doing absolutely nothing to hold sales together, nor are they cutting the time between acceptance of offer and exchange of contracts. Buyers don't want to see them, and sellers have no interest in them. If she does not believe me, I challenge her to spend a few days actually in estate agents' offices to see the reality for herself"

SPLINTA has campaigned against the Home Information Pack since 2001 and now has an online petition running on the Number 10 Downing Street website to try and head off a further change to the HIP legislation later this year. Nick Salmon thinks the Government has been taken aback by the massive public response to the petition and sees moves afoot to tarnish estate agents so that the aim of the petition fails.

"HIPs are unloved by the property industry and unwanted by the public. They will become even more unpopular in June when the Government plans to end the ability of a seller to go on the market immediately they want to. Our petition against the ending of this 'first day marketing' concession is in the Top 20 by size of over 7,700 such petitions on the Number Ten Downing Street website. The implication of the CLG press release is that estate agents are in some way responsible for the fact that buyers don't see a HIP. They don't see it because they are not interested in seeing it and the suggestion is a blatant attempt by CLG to create a reason for ending first day marketing. If it wasn't potentially so serious, it would be laughable"

Or email SPLINTA

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Press Release from SPLINTA
Release date: 3rd February 2008


NAEA BACKS SPLINTA PETITION AS MINISTER SIGNALS RE-THINK.

A petition on the No 10 Downing Street website has received the official backing of the 10,000 member-strong National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA). Campaign group, SPLINTA (Sellers' Pack Law is not the Answer) launched the petition at the end of January calling for the retention of 'first day marketing' for residential property. The petition (http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/homeselling) has already attracted almost 6,000 signatures and is among the Top 30 by size on the website.

The NAEA backing comes as newly appointed Housing Minister, Caroline Flint, indicated on Radio 4's 'Any Questions' that her department is looking again at their decision to end first day marketing on May 31st.

Nick Salmon, leader of SPLINTA, said, " I was delighted and encouraged to hear Caroline Flint confirm that she is aware of how fragile the property market is at present and that in consequence she is making her officials think again about what many believe is an ill-judged decision by the Government to require the full Home Information Pack to be completed before the marketing of a property can begin. We are also very pleased to have the official support of the NAEA and I am sure many members and their customers will be signing up to the petition."

NAEA Chief Executive, Peter Bolton-King said, "We have consistently lobbied the Government to retain first day marketing and our members tell us that the results of ending it would be detrimental to home sellers. We are therefore fully in support of the SPLINTA petition and our members are encouraging the public to sign up."

SPLINTA - Sellers' Pack Law Is Not The Answer

Every consumer would like the home buying and selling process to be a certain, open and stress free process. The HIP will not achieve that end because: it cannot deal with human nature; it does not impose any obligation on a buyer to have their finances in order or be in a position to exchange a contract when an offer is accepted; it does not bar a seller from accepting a different offer whilst the sale to the first buyer is in progress.

SPLINTA is campaigning for the HIP to be dropped entirely and for government to go back to the drawing board with industry to create properly beneficial changes to the home buying system. If this is not achieved then we call for the removal of the restriction on First Day Marketing and for the Energy Performance Certificate to be made a voluntary document up to the point of exchange of contracts.