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Information Packs
Many Home Sellers will normally opt for their local Estate Agent to
market their property for sale. There are a number of reasons that the
home seller may consider marketing their home in this way:
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Convenience
- there's no doubt that its convenient for the home seller to
instruct an estate agent to handle all the paperwork and home
viewings for potential buyers, some home owners lack the time to
arrange these matters in the course of a home sale, hence the Estate
Agent will take care of this matters on your behalf.
-
Time
saving - selling your own home takes time, again the estate agent
can free up your time by handling negotiations and viewings for you
when you're at work.
So
what about Hips?
This
is where the process is often overlooked - many Estate Agents do
not have "in-house" property solicitors to handle the
property transaction in legal terms. On instructing an Estate
Agent to act on your behalf to sell your home, the agent in turn
must commence the order for a Hip Pack (Home Information Pack) to
be compiled. If no "in-house" solicitor is available
then the Estate Agent will simply instruct a local residential
property conveyancer to compile the HIP. In effect, the estate
agent is now the middleman in the agreement to produce the Hip.
This arrangement may well incorporate a "handling
charge" which is added to the cost of the completed Home
Information Pack (Hip).
In
addition, sometimes the Estate Agent will offer this to the home
seller as a "branded" HIP, put simply the Estate Agents
branding and details are incorporated on the HIP documents.
No
Sale No Fee Hips?
Not necessarily
so, if the HIP is a branded product it could be owned by the
Estate Agent, and not the home seller, dependent on how the Hip is
purchased the home owner may be contractually bound by it,
effectively a "tie-in" is created. If you decide to change
your Estate Agent you could find that the Hip does not belong to
you.
No
Tie-Ins Hips?
Check
with you Estate Agent about who owns the HIP, get confirmation in
writing. Failing to do so could mean if that you change agent, you
could end up paying for a new Home Information Pack, as yours
would not be "portable", and it may well cost more.
Payment
Options
Common payment options and terms offered include:
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Upfront Payment
- If a home seller has paid for a pack up front in full they would expect to be able to take the HIP to a new estate agent
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Deferred Payment
- i.e. an agreement is made to defer payment for the HIP to a later date. Once the home seller has paid for the Home Information
Pack they should be able to take the Home Information Pack with them to a new agent
-
A ‘free’ HIP included in the estate agents fees
- Some estate agents will offer free HIPs and may retain ownership of the Home Information
Pack even if the seller decides to change estate agents. Some agents will release the Home Information
Pack if a withdrawal fee is paid.
How
can I be sure that the Home Information Pack belongs to me?
The
use of independent Hips providers or residential property
conveyancers virtually guarantees ownership and that your HIP is portable, and, it may
well work out to be cheaper than using Estate Agents.
Using
independent companies (like those listed below on this website) means
that your HIP is portable,
you bought it, and you own it!
See
also Hips
Conveyancing Property Solicitors
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