HIPS STILL A BONE OF CONTENTION

NAEA officials say the compilation of HIPs is being delayed by problems in arranging drainage searches and in getting management information on blocks of flats. Some local authorities limit the number of local searches permitted daily.

According to propertyfinder.com, a property portal site listing 350,000 homes from 4,400 estate agency branches, HIPs cost sellers an average £350 a time - and 93% of buyers don't rely on information they include.

The same survey claims 70% of agents believe HIPs are disrupting the housing market.

However, Henry Pryor at the website Primemove.com thinks that fear is overdone.

He said: "The arrival of HIPs across the entire market will have far less impact on behaviour than the credit crunch and the sharp change in buyer sentiment of recent months.

"With new instructions at about 50% of the level this time last year, this news will have little impact.

"But at least it cheers up 6,000 Domestic Energy Assessors (DEAs) who provide EPCs, and Home Inspectors have invested in training for this new career and have been desperately short of work ever since."

Estate agents agree that a key decision from Government last week is moving back the 'drop dead' date - the date for insisting a HIP is available to purchasers before a property is allowed to go on sale.

It was expected to be January 1, 2008, and is now June 1.

Says Christopher Lacy, at leading London and country agents Savills: "A flicker of sanity has prevailed with this extension of the First Day marketing provisions - and also the withdrawal of the need to include all leasehold management information apart from the actual lease within an HIP."

That second concession may be particularly important - because many one and two bedroom homes are leasehold properties. Owners faced considerable expense getting the necessary information from landlords before a leasehold property could go on sale.

Says Henry Pryor: "This is good for owners of leasehold properties because it means the cost of HIPs on a freehold property, averaging £300, won't be so far away from a HIP on a leasehold which threatened to top £1,000. Now it will be a bit pricier than a freehold, but not onerously so."

Naturally, companies which supply HIPs are ecstatic - their months of waiting for work might be almost over.

Says Alex Rodgers of Christopher Rodgers Home & Energy, which is building up the UK's largest team of Domestic Energy Assessors (DEAs) and aims to have a team of 400 assessors within months: "EPCs and HIPs are designed to make house buying and selling less onerous and risky, while helping to improve energy efficiency.

"The domestic property market including buyers, sellers, agents and lawyers need to embrace the new legislation and schedule home inspections and energy assessments early. This will help owners to access grants to improve their home's energy performance."

However, critics of HIPs fear the procedure and taxes involved in moving house could become so complex that many will opt to stay put.

Says Trevor Kent, the Gerrards Cross, Bucks agent who has campaigned fiercely against HIPs: "What possible reason is there for Government to persist with the continued roll-out of a totally discredited and vilified initiative, with lies and anecdotal success stories which have been proved by the house sales industry to be total fabrication?"

Trevor Kent claims purchasers hardly bother to look at their HIP, while some buyers' solicitors ignore HIPs and prefer to search for the information themselves to better protect their clients.

Kent also fears that sellers in financial difficulties might lack the money, and the credit worthiness, to arrange a HIP for their home.

Says Kent: "There is talk of 50,000 repossessions in 2008, which could be an under-estimate. How will some of these people get their home on sale before that final knock on the door, if they haven't the cash or the credit to cover the cost of a HIP?"

:: INFORMATION: Local newspapers are carrying adverts for more recruits needed to train as home inspectors. They specify current fee expectations as £60-£100 for Energy Assessments (DEA) and £200-300 for Home Condition Reports, and estimate that up to 15 DEAs or six HCRs could be comfortably compiled each week - for a total income in excess of £1,000 per week.

The advert suggests additional income streams are possible from property valuations, commercial property Assessments and flood and fire risk Assessments, suggesting that some of the new officials which the Government is putting into the housing market could soon enjoy fee income approaching £100,000 a year, paid for by property owners.

Government-approved Home Inspector Training Courses are available at centres near London, and in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester.

:: ARE BUILDERS RAISING THEIR GAME?

For a decade and more, builders claim that they have been improving their standards of service to housebuyers, but Government, and consumer bodies, fail to believe them.

The 2007 Annual Review from the National HouseBuilding Council, just published, certainly suggests lots of grumpy homeowners: under the NHBC warranty, which guards a home against serious defects for ten years, the NHBC paid claims totalling £36.8m last year.

Just over £10m covered problems on homes less than two years old, while £25.6m repaired homes between two and ten years old.

Around half the money went on claims involving foundations, substructure and ground floors. Just over 9% concerned services, fixtures and fittings, and 25% involved superstructure problems.

Of 7,777 cases submitted to the NHBC resolution service, nearly 72% upheld the homeowner's complaint, which suggests homeowners should take their case further when a builder ignores a complaint.

Overall, the NHBC suggest building standards are getting better. In 2006/7, it paid even more on repairs - £37.3m.

The NHBC, with 21,300 member firms on its register, says it is determined to take its expertise "to the next level".

But builders will be jolted further out of their complacency by the Calcutt Review (Nov 22), set up by Government to point a new direction for the industry to build more new homes to zero-carbon standards and raise output to produce 3m new homes between now and 2020.

Calcutt suggests that firms failing to reach certain levels of customer satisfaction should be barred from bidding for public land for future schemes.

As Government quango English Partnerships is about to release enough public land for 200,000 new homes, that means bodging builders could see big hits to turnover.

Yolande Barnes, Director of Residential Research at London and country house agency Savills, worked on the Calcutt Report.

She says: "Our findings suggest the quality of new build construction has gone down since 2000, while quality of service has gone up. Builders fix problems more quickly".

But Ms Barnes says the lesson of Calcutt is that housebuilders have little incentive to do a much better job in terms of quality of design and construction; there is no advantage in good design, or penalties for poor design, apart from prices purchasers pay.

Builders are good at rapid construction and effective marketing of homes on "over-ready" sites in urban centres.

Many are weak on complex sites requiring long-term planning and a complex masterplan blending housing alongside major commercial property schemes.

"Commercial property companies at least take a middle term view and are better at this", says Ms Barnes.

"For instance, at Ebbsfleet, Kent's new high-speed rail terminal, development is masterminded by the leading commercial property firm Land Securities, with no housebuilders involved at all."

Calcutt says the system of builders taking the fastest possible profit must be replaced by something more strategic: long-term plans to oversee the release of land by public and private sector owners, much improved design, more public consultation in drawing up masterplans

:: Developers who refuse to refund 'reservation fees' when buyers pull out are strongly criticised in Property Week magazine by Trevor Moross, of property firm Dorrington Investments.

Mr Moross cites the case of a buyer who paid a 'reservation fee' of £5,000 - and backed out on the day he was due to exchange contracts. The developer refused to refund a single penny.

Says Mr Moross; "This surely cannot be right. It must fall into the territory of an unfair contract and must be subject to regulation".

:: AUCTION BIDDERS CHASE EARLY XMAS GIFTS

So drastically has sentiment turned in the property market that vendors are likely to pitch guide prices low in auctions between now and Christmas - suggesting deals for buyers who disregard doom-laden wailings from pundits.

Countrywide's sale in Bristol (Dec 4) lists three bedroom terraced houses with guide prices around £55,000.

The Birmingham auction (Dec 11) includes three bedroom houses in the Midlands around £90,000, a two bedroom terraced house in Coventry (guided at £70-75,000) and a residential investment in Bromsgrove (£125,000) earning rental income of nearly £2,000 per year.

Professional investors will surely be looking for opportunities to grow portfolios with prices like these.

But they will probably be squeezed out by the 'Sarah Beeny brigade' when a rambling four bedroom creekside home at Mylor Bridge, bang on the waterfront near Falmouth in Cornwall, goes under the hammer in Countrywide's London auction (Dec 13): the guide is £400,000 for a property urgently needing TLC.

The Clive Emson sales include properties in Sussex (Dec 13), Kent (Dec 14) and Hampshire (Dec 18): a cottage in Bexhill arranged over three floors requires complete refurbishment (£100-120,000), while a three bedroom house in Guildford, Surrey, previously let to students, is guided at £190,000-200,000.

With Ramsgate, on the Kent coast, about to be transformed by high-speed train services into London, a shrewd buyer might find £220-250,000 indicated for a Grade II-listed former snooker hall in the town with permission for conversion to two live-work units.

INFORMATION: Clive Emson (0845 850 0333); Countrywide Property Auctions (0906 666 2468).