Whether Home Information Packs (HIPs) will or won't take effect is a theme
that has been debated endlessly over the past few weeks and months. Leaves you
thinking that everything that can be said has already been said.?

Yet there as many different splinter discussions as there are minutes in the
day, there appear to be four main areas currently under debate:

Whether HIPs will actually be implemented on 1 June;
If they do go ahead, whether they will be in the format currently agreed
by the government;
The effect they will have on the housing market, and;
What effect they will have on the Mortgage and Estate Agent industries.

After two years of preparation, some strong discussions, and a couple of
u-turns, Home Information Packs (HIPs) are set to go live on 1 June this year.

Originally intended as a substantial modification that would revolutionise
the manner in which properties are purchased and sold, HIPs were intended to
make house sales quicker and cheaper, by including a basic survey - the Home
Condition Report (HCR) - and search details in the information provided by the
seller.

Two years on, the scheme has been comparatively watered down. Last Summer
research among over 1,000 mortgage brokers showed some strong concerns about the
content and timing of the HIPs launch.

Not long after the research was conducted, the government conceded that
putting a HCR in the HIP was possibly not the best of ideas, mainly because it
was becoming increasingly inconceivable that the necessary 7,000 home inspectors
would be recruited and trained in time for the launch.

Take a look at the government website on Home Information Packs at
www.communities.gov.uk, and you'll see that what was originally planned as an
advancement to the system of house purchase has nearly turned into a green
initiative on energy saving - not a bad thing, but not quite what was intended
when the scheme was devised.

So, as the proposition now stands, the first document in the HIP will not be
a report on the condition of the property. Instead, it will be an Energy
Performance Certificate (EPC).

The EPC is intended to be an energy rating for homes, giving consumers
information about the energy efficiency of the property they purpose to
purchase. This may be a great idea in itself, but it is not exactly something
that will speed up the transaction process.

The revised HIP rules are now as follows. From 1 June, sellers will be able
to market their home as soon as the EPC and key legal documents are provided. A
HCR can be included if the seller wishes to instruct one, but it is no longer
obligatory - which to all intents and purposes means that most people won't
trouble themselves.

Similarly, searches will not need to be included in the packs, even though
these too were originally supposed to be an comprehensive ingredient of the
packs. They purely need to have been 'commissioned'. Properties that go on the
market prior to the 1 June implementation date will now be allowed to stay
HIP-free until March 2008, rather than the original October 2007 deadline.

This has led to conjecture that more properties may be put onto the market in
the first half of the year, with a consequent fall off in the latter half.

In the long term, HIPs probably will not about the revolution that the
original proposal promised. Similarly, ideas which focus attention on green
initiatives and energy saving have to be applauded.

There are many other developments happening in the market which will work to
make the process quicker and more efficient. The great strides made to speed up
the mortgage process have made a huge difference and if e-conveyancing fulfils
its potential, it will have a dramatic effect.

Home Information Packs are set to change the way that the UK property market works. How will they affect you? or your business? Now you can ask questions of industry experts to help split fact from romour.