Eddie Goldsmith, senior partner at Goldsmith Williams, is firmly of the view that the move will do nothing to allay the concerns of the industry and that it will, in fact, worsen the situation.
Goldsmith commented: “The government’s main reason for introducing Home Information Packs (HIPs) with Home Condition Reports was to cut down on abortive costs of £1m per day; they intended to rectify this by giving prospective buyers sight of Home Condition Reports prior to making an offer. By making the Home Condition Reports voluntary, the government has removed the backbone of its plan to save the massive abortive costs incurred by prospective buyers.
“Even worse, the government states that it is still committed to requiring sellers to provide an Energy Performance Certificate on each house sold. Based on the government’s own current figures, this is likely to cost each seller £250, equating to an additional £400m of costs per year to provide these certificates. This is in addition to the cost of a survey incurred by buyers.
“Two serious issues arise from this; firstly, this is an additional cost for sellers, which they will not be able to pass onto buyers. In addition, sellers are also buyers and will therefore be required to pay for the certificate on the property they sell and a survey on the property they purchase. Secondly, if as the government says, only Home Inspectors can carry out the survey for the certificates, then surely we are right back to square one - there will be a chronic shortage of Home Inspectors and we will have a melt down of the housing market because of the lack of availability of Energy Performance Certificates.
“The situation is going from bad to worse. This is the result of governmental artificial meddling in a mature market and it’s a disgrace.”
