The Pack, formerly 'seller’s pack', is a key part of a series of reforms aimed at modernising the current archaic and inefficient system in England and Wales that costs home buyers and sellers hundreds of millions of pounds of wasted expenditure each year.
The Bill includes measures requiring estate agents and anyone else marketing a home for sale to have a pack containing key information about the property and for copies to be made available to prospective buyers.
Housing Minister Jeff Rooker said the present home buying and selling process gave consumers a raw deal, with nearly a third of transactions collapsing after terms have been agreed: “We have a ridiculous system where key information needed by buyers and sellers is not available until after terms have been negotiated and agreed,” he said. “It is hardly surprising so many transactions run into delays and that terms negotiated on the basis of inadequate information do not stick. We are going to put this right by ensuring key information is available up front at the start of the transaction process in the home information pack, therefore making the home buying and selling process more transparent, more certain, faster and consumer friendly.”
The Minister added that for everyone to benefit from the Home Information Pack they had to be compulsory and the draft Bill sets out proposals for a civil sanctions regime rather than, as was originally envisaged, criminal sanctions for enforcing the home information pack duties.
