Home Information Packs



Key facts about Home Information Packs when listing your property for sale with Barns Etc

Home Information Packs currently only apply to properties for sale in England and Wales (in Scotland you will require a Home Report and in Northern Ireland only an Energy Performance Certificate).

A Home Information Pack is now a legal requirement and you cannot market a property without one. It must be available from the day your property is marketed so you cannot list your property here unless you are in possession of a HIP or are exempt from having one.

Unconverted properties are exempt from HIPs and there is no requirement for a HIP if you are selling a portfolio of more than one property or a property that has mixed use (residential and commercial).

There are other exemptions not generally related to barns:

properties where there is no marketing, for example if you are selling to a member of your family

non-residential properties

properties limited by law to use as holiday accommodation or occupation for less than 11 months per year

properties not being sold with completely vacant possession, for example with a sitting tenant

unsafe properties and properties due to be demolished

properties sold through the ‘Right to Buy’, ‘Right to Acquire’ and ‘Social HomeBuy’ home ownership schemes

What is a Home Information Pack?

A Home Information Pack is intended to speed up the buying process. Buyers will be able to make more informed decisions about purchasing a home based on the information in a Home Information Pack.

Home Information Packs can be prepared for you by estate agents, solicitors, HIP providers - and you can prepare a HIP yourself. The seller is responsible for paying for the pack and its contents - depending on where you live, if you pay someone to prepare it for you it will cost in the region of £300 to £1,000.

Once prepared, there is no obligation to update the Pack as long as your property remains on the market. Some documents can be no be more than three months old when marketing starts and no component of the Pack should be more than 12 months old on the day the property goes on sale.

What does a Home Information Pack need to contain?

From 6 April 2009, the HIP must be available and contain the following documents on the first day a property is put on the market:

• Home Information Pack Index
• Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ)
• Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) or Predicted Energy Assessment (PEA)
  
• sustainability information (required for newly built homes)
  
• sale statement
  
• evidence of title

If the following documents are unavailable when marketing begins, they should be added to the HIP as soon as they are available. These documents must be included within 28 days of the date the property was first placed on the market:

• standard searches (local authority and drainage and water)
  
• a copy of the lease for leasehold properties
  
• commonhold documents, where appropriate

Sellers will also want to include guarantees and warranties for work already carried out on their homes.

Who should you give a copy of your Home Information Pack to?

Potential buyers should usually be entitled to a copy of the Pack if they want it and if they are prepared to pay a reasonable fee for the copying costs, but the seller or estate agent can turn down requests without incurring a penalty where it is believed that:

The person could not afford the property in question. The seller might, for example, want to exclude people who cannot demonstrate that they have arranged an 'in principle' mortgage

The person making the request is not really interested in buying the property - for example, a journalist posing as a buyer to gain access to the Pack relating to a celebrity's home

The potential buyer is not a person to whom the seller would wish to sell the property. The current position is that sellers can refuse to sell to a particular person, and do not have to give a reason. It should be emphasised, however, that this does not affect anyone's rights under legislation governing discrimination on the grounds of race, sex or disability.