Lovey talks about the Conservative Home Buying Review, and how its ‘root and branch review’ will take opinion from all areas of the industry.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Law Society haven’t come up with any affirmative measures to improve efficiency in recent decades – what makes Lovey think that they now have something constructive to add to the debate?
His idea that the review will be ‘without any preconceived conclusions’ is also rendered null and void, as the Conservatives have already stated their preconceived intention to scrap Home Information Packs (HIPs), without giving them a fair length of time to prove their market value.
Lovey’s assertion that ‘many solicitors will not accept HIP providers’ personal searches’ is also fundamentally inaccurate.
Only one lender out of the top 20 does not accept personal searches. Every conveyancer that LMS recommends accepts personal searches, and we deal with hundreds of law firms.
What, ultimately, is wrong with getting title and search information upfront? This information is gathered during the house buying process anyway – using HIPs to collate the information won’t cost more and in fact often costs the consumer less.
HIPs, given time, will significantly contribute to a solution to all of the problems that the Conservatives want to solve. Efficiency, binding offers, gazumping and gazundering will all be improved once HIPs are properly underway.
Providing the information upfront to the buyer means that any uncertainty is avoided, and cancellations are already being reduced.
No one is saying that HIPs are the final step in this process. Clearly more information could be added into them, such as the Home Condition Report, to make them even more useful.
HIPs in their current format still have the potential to knock weeks off the time that it takes to buy a property, and save a great deal of cash for the consumer.
Although this may be hard for traditional practitioners to accept, the market is changing – and it is the forward thinking, IT driven companies that are leading the way. Lovey needs to take the ‘bee out of his bonnet’ and look at the hard facts.
Dominic Toller
Head of marketing and new business
LMS
