Government announces delays to Hips launch

Government announces delays to Hips launch

The home condition report, which was to form the survey element of the home selling packs, will not be included when Hips are launched next year.

The minister for housing and planning, Yvette Cooper, said further testing of home condition reports was needed to ensure they delivered the intended benefits for consumers.

She said there were also concerns that there would not be sufficient trained inspectors to cope with the demand if the reports were included in the main launch of the packs in June 2007.

At the same time, the Council of Mortgage Lenders has warned that many lenders will not be ready to use home condition reports until 2008 or 2009, meaning they would continue to seek separate mortgage valuation surveys.

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In a written statement to parliament, Ms Cooper said: "As a result, we have concluded that there would be significant risks and potential disadvantages to consumers from a mandatory 'big bang' introduction of full home condition reports on June 1, 2007."

She said home information packs (Hips) would still be introduced with searches and other key documents, including energy performance certificates, from June next year, but home condition reports would not be made mandatory.

Speaking for the Conservative party, which has mounted a campaign against Hips, Michael Gove, shadow minister for housing and planning, said "The government's ongoing plans for home information packs are now a complete shambles. After the u-turn on police mergers and the delay over identity cards, this is the third Whitehall farce in a week.

"The Labour government is slowly discovering that this expensive and deficient red tape from John Prescott's days simply will not deliver the improvements that the housing market needs. The government should abandon the whole scheme and consult afresh rather than move ahead with a vanity project to save ministers' faces."

The Conservatives enlisted the help of Channel 4 property expert Kirstie Allsopp in its anti-Hip campaign. In an interview with Guardian Unlimited, Ms Allsopp accused the government of making a "huge mistake" in imposing Hips on home sellers.

"This is about coming up with a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist and in the meantime creating a £600m information pack industry no one wants or needs," she said.

The government has claimed that the packs play a necessary part in meeting an EU directive to provide energy condition reports when a home is sold. However, the Conservatives argue that energy reports have been implemented in Northern Ireland without the introduction of a full Hip.