HIP replacement

If you want a HIP replaced these days, even on the NHS, you get it made of unobtanium and it’ll last until you’ll have more fun in one of those electric trolleys that mad old people charge around in.

At the moment the replacement HIP we’ve been offered in the property business is like damp cardboard, in other words worse than useless. Rather like Labour abolishing the House of Lords with no idea about what to replace it with much trumpeting has accompanied the removal of the packs but nothing else has been said about what’ll replace it.

Grant Shapps has had ages to work out how to speed up the process, but as of this moment seems to have come up blank. Could be wrong but it might have been a refreshing change to see a politician coming up with a sensible alternative having rubbished something an opposing party had brought in.

Do we go for some kind of deposits from buyers and sellers to be forfeited if either pulls out or gazumps/gazunders, should a Home Condition Report be mandatory so that buyers can get a true picture of issues (HIPs might have worked if they’d been left in?) or do we leave it all alone.

The curious thing is that in the short term abolition might just actually speed things up as an unforeseen consequence of the HIP process was that Councils got horribly bogged down with searches, now that’s all finished ordinary buyers should get their normal searches much quicker.

Let’s hope the new administration gets their act together and actually talks to some people in the Industry who know what the hell they’re on about and attempt to tackle the issue holistically and look at mortgage advances, solicitors, surveyors and estate agents. We all know the process is cheap, but it’s a bit of a mess really.