Kelly's U-turn has caused a spectacular pile-up

Kelly's U-turn has caused a spectacular pile-up

Dog's sinner doesn't even begin to describe the mess the government has made of trying to 'improve' home sales. Dog's dinner, breakfast and lunch all rolled into one is more like it.

As everyone interested in the home sales industry - estate agents, lenders, solicitors, surveyors and, over the past year, consumer body Which? - constantly warned, the government's plans for introducing a home sales pack have collapsed in utter shambles.

When providing a response to our article on page 13, a government spokesman rang to substitute the word 'practical' for the word 'clear' in the description of the new implementation programme. Sadly, what Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly has announced is neither clear nor practical.

The Hip - containing local searches, an energy performance certificate (EPC), title documents and leasehold information - was to become compulsory next Friday. But in a U-turn impressive by any standards, Kelly announced last week that their introduction would be put off until 1 August, and thereafter they would apply only to houses with four bedrooms or more (about a fifth of sales).

Advertisement starts

---

---

Advertisement ends

Moreover, homeowners will not initially be required to have a Hip in hand when they start marketing their property - they just need to prove they have ordered one. How will that help? The whole point of the Hip was to provide information to reduce potential causes of disagreement between buyers and sellers upfront - not after they've visited the property and made an offer.

The fact that there is no legal definition of a four-bedroom house shows that the proposed delay for retrenchment is simply not long enough. By the beginning of August, estate agents will be marketing a lot of three-bedroom/one-study properties, and rubbish dumps will see a huge influx of unwanted beds.

Desperate to scrape a rescue package together, the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has yet again assembled plans that look unenforceable and unhelpful. This mess needs a lot more than two months to untangle: Which? suggests a year as a minimum.

Then there are the domestic energy assessors (DEAs) - who, with government encouragement, have spent thousands of pounds and given up jobs to train to conduct EPCs. Kelly admitted that while 2,000 are necessary, only 500 have been accredited so far - clearly a major reason why the Hips launch has been delayed.

EPCs will be required by European law from the beginning of 2009, so the assessors will eventually get work. But the National Association of Estate Agents says it has 1,000 trainees waiting to be accredited. Chief executive Peter Bolton King says many will be ready by 1 August and asks what they are supposed to do if only 20 per cent of sales require their new skills.

Since lenders emasculated the Hip last July, it has been little more than a vehicle for the introduction of the EPC. Surely Bolton King is right - the obvious thing to do is to introduce the EPC for all property sales as soon as sufficient DEAs are accredited, and ditch the rest of the Hip.

As we show on page 13, other countries have managed to implement schemes to reduce failed house sales without this fuss. Why can't we? All those involved want to see the government go back to square one and get a new scheme to reduce failed house sales in place for next spring. They complain that although the DCLG has held plenty of meetings to discuss implementation of the Hip, it has simply not listened. One person who attended a meeting about the DEAs problem with housing minister Yvette Cooper in February says she fiddled with her electronic organiser throughout. Others blame DCLG civil servants, saying they have only provided ministers with information and advice they wanted to hear.

Whatever the reality, the DCLG has lost all credibility in handling this issue. It really must now listen to what the industry has to say.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007