The Government has announced further changes to the Home Information Pack (HIP) regime by introducing the necessity for a ‘Property Information Questionnaire’ (PIQ) for all properties marketed for sale after 5 April 2009. The PIQ will provide basic, useful information about a property including a summary of the leasehold if any and will be contained within the HIP.
In addition, the current arrangement whereby a copy of the lease is the only additional requirement in the HIP for leasehold property sales is (from 1 January 2009) a permanent requirement.
The temporary 'first day marketing' exemption from having to have a HIP is being removed from 6 April 2009 . Thus a basic' HIP must be in place before a property is marketed - providing certainty to consumers that a HIP will be available.
Agents will still be able to advise about properties they expect to come on the market, but not to market them until a HIP is prepared.
There are other changes to the HIPs regime of lesser significance.
We would like to thank you for the superb work and attention to detail that has gone into our dispute with the council so far!