Home Information Packs: Three bed homes to be included soon

Filed Under Finance

Home information packs (HIPs) have been with us for two weeks, but as they are only required for four bed homes, only around 17pc of house sellers are affected. So far.

Well those individuals and companies who jumped on the bandwagon, hoping to cash in on the huge market for their energy performance certificates and HIP preparation services, are feelling the pinch and are trying to convince the Government to extend the scheme to three bedroom homes as soon as possible.

The fledgling HIPs industry has seen its first casualty as a HIPs provider has already gone into administration. No wonder the Association for Home Information Providers is doing everything possible to increase its number of customers by extending the HIPs scheme.

They want the Government to include three bedroom homes in the HIPs scheme in September, in fact the sooner the better, according to them. After all, they have the cashflow of all those HIP provider companies to think of.

So will the Government extend the scheme to three bedroom homes in the next few weeks? Probably not as they want there to be more energy assessors in place first, but mark my words, HIPs for three bedroom homes are on their way, so sellers should be prepared to shell out for them.