Speaking at a Rooftop roundtable HIPs debate, a number of commentators expressed concerns at the marketing of properties before the need for HIPs.
Phil Spencer, of Garrington Home Finders, and presenter of Location, Location, Location, said the first two weeks of marketing a property were the most crucial, but a full HIP was not needed during this period. He said: “The first two weeks are the most ‘hot,’ so what is the need for a HIP afterwards? Another question is what constitutes marketing? I think it constitutes when an estate agent tells one person, and with that assumption, how are the marketing rules enforceable.”
Richard Footitt, head of private housing sector for the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), said: “Marketing begins at the point when the property is effectively advertised publicly.”
He added that those involved in the process should look to compile a full HIP at the earliest opportunity. “The principle underlying HIPs is that all the information should be made available at that point, but we have to allow for the fact that some information may take longer to obtain for a legitimate reason, and as a concession we will allow marketing without that particular element, providing all due efforts have been made to obtain it. We would expect local authority trading standards officers to distinguish between cases where genuine efforts have been made and those where only a token effort has been made.”
However, Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at John Charcol, argued this could lead to cases of blackmail. He said: “People could charge high rates to get the information over in time. The government should say, ‘this is how much each service is going to cost, and this is how long it should take to compile.”
