The National Association of Estate Agents has said that Home Information Packs should be 'done away with totally'.
Home Information Packs (Hips) should be abolished because they "were never a good idea", according to the vice president of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), Gary Smith.
The comments follow the release in February of the Communities and Local Government's (CLG) departmental annual report for last year. It concluded that CLG is still "struggling to perfect the [Hips] scheme at a time when the housing market needs more robust and effective initiatives".
A Hip is a collection of documents which the seller of a property gives to the buyer. It provides information on the house in question and it is currently illegal in England and Wales for a homeowner to market their property without one.
The NAEA's Mr Smith has argued that the problem is with Hips themselves, rather than they have been implemented, "because they fundamentally altered the house buying/selling process in this country". He continued: "It's moved it away from a sort of free market when someone could determine when they wanted to sell their property and when they wanted to buy a property almost immediately to one that poses some delay in it."
Mr Smith added that Hips contain irrelevant information which the buyer is rarely interested in, such as how much money they can save by "[sticking] solar panels... in their roof".
