How to sell a HIP replacement

I read, with mild amusement yesterday, that the Decentralisation and Local Government Bill announced as part of The Queen's Speech will bring about the "Outright abolition of Home Improvement Packs": Even in their final hour, HIPs continue to cause confusion at the highest level. But as the rumbles of discontent at the decision to get shot of them quickly subside, there is already talk of what, if anything, should replace them.

Peter Bolton-King confessed at The Property Professional Show that he had spoken to many others about what to do in (or at) the wake of HIPs and the consensus is that the issues with the home buying process that HIPs so spectacularly failed to deal with, still need to be dealt with somehow, by someone at some point. No doubt this will be a topic for further rampant debate, but I think it is important that it is a) a debate for the industry, not for Government and b) it is just a debate at this stage, our current efforts need to focus on recovery rather than reform.

Fast forward a bit to a point in the hopefully not too distant future when mortgage availability has dramatically improved and Bill Oddie has been brought in to save the endangered species of the First Time Buyer and we can once again pull in for a pit-stop and take a good look under the hood. If we can then come up with a HIP replacement, we should consider much more carefully how we present it to the public. Perhaps there are some lessons from other industries about how this should be approached.

As a young father, I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that my next choice of car will need to be influenced more by boot capacity than cubic capacity. High on the list of requirements will also be safety. I really don't know what the difference would be if I crashed a car with a EuroNCAP safety rating of 5 as opposed to 3. Perhaps it's the difference between a bruise or a break, perhaps it's the difference between life and death. All I really know is that safer is better and therefore I should have a preference towards the highest possible NCAP rating. I would probably not regard a Car Information Pack that explained the technical details of airbag deployment or crumple zone performance to be much use in making that decision. Ultimately, I just want an expert to tell me it's safe, I don't necessarily need to know how or why.

 
There are plenty of other examples of industries getting behind a badge that acts as reassuring hallmark for consumers. The vast majority of us would not dare to book a holiday that was not ATOL protected and yet who outside the travel industry can explain in detail what protection ATOL actually gives you. It's changed to Gas Safe now, but CORGI registration for gas engineers is also a name that consumers have come to trust without understanding why.

HIPs provided too many meaningless ticks in meaningless boxes. A whole bunch of information that the average consumer found difficult to derive any actionable insight from and hence hardly anyone ever asked to see one. Our industry is a process driven one, but our customers are not familiar with the internal workings of the property engine and do not want to become RICS qualified to understand the intricacies of what surveys and searches can reveal. The detail always has its uses for the professionals involved, but from a consumer perspective, we need something that simply says "it's all fine, you have no reason to pull out of the purchase."

This is not something that can or indeed should happen overnight, but if enough agents, enough solicitors, enough industry bodies, maybe even a Housing Minister or four could get behind a scheme and sell it to the consumer as a simple benefit, then we might fare better than we have with HIPs.

Comments

[John Smith]

Isn't the main problem with the housing process that it just takes too long for the conveyancing process. What HIPs attempted to do was to reduce that time, they did but not a significant amount. What all those concern need to do is forget silly quality marks and sit down to find out how the industry can make a sale more secure and reduce the 10-12 weeks conveyancing time.

Energy saving is a bigger issue and should not be tagged on to selling a house only but should be a continuous project for every home owner.

It amazes me how we purchase houses almost on a whim, like if it is close to the school that the kids go to. Such a massive investment should be bought with more care and a simple stamp of approval could not take in all the intricacies of a property, the land and the environmental area.

This is not a small problem but do the industry really care if they did they would have adapted HIPs to make them work, to improve the conveyancing time, to give sellers and buyers the crucial information they need to make a more informed choice, to begin the energy saving process where advice a further interaction could be developed.

HIPs have gone and the industry is no better than before they were introduced, back to square one guys.

[eMoov]

The uncertainties and time related issues within the conveyance of residential property musy surely be addressed not by a HIP 'replacement' but by a fresh look at the conveyancing process itself.
Contractual obligation is the key...
In other words, buyers and sellers must be tied in after a certain point to prevent the biggest issue within property selling, and that is the matter of ultimatums, tantrums and misunderstanding leading to abortive sales.
See http://www.emoov.co.uk/blog/437/what-now/

[Jane B]

I was a HIP sceptic before they were introduced and agree that buyers rarely asked to see them, but I changed my mind to a degree when I saw that when a property sold - we cut our sale to exchange timescales by 30% - 3 weeks and reduced the number of abortive sales. Improvements came about mainly because the conveyancing process could get started straight away and some of the uncertainty was removed as search information was available.
A faster conveyancing process is definitely the answer - too many solicitors/conveyancers are stuck in the past, posting and phoning instead of e-mailing - not to mention their lack of ability to return a phone call/e-mail.
The Housing Minister clearly thinks scrapping HIPs is the answer to the issues in the housing market - they weren't the problem nor is scrapping them the solution. So come on Mr Pickles what now...

[Daniel Hare]

Thank you all for your comments. I hope that the industry can deliver a solution in place of HIPs in time without relying on further legislation. The internal focus must of course be to improve the process, but the external focus should then be to convince consumers of the benefit without confusing them.

[eMoov]

Connells published a statement a while ago that their property transactions had sped up by a week due to HIPs. But this fails to take into account the fact that with house sales running at half the levels of two years ago, surveyors, conveyancers and agents surely have fewer cases to contend with and thus they will conclude quicker?
HIPs are merely a coincidence in that they do not have anything in them that a conveyancer actually uses. Even the searches are often re-done by a buyer's lawyer. And the PIQ can be filled in as 'don't knows'!