Important Factors When Choosing a HIP Supplier

As the HIP can be very important to the success of your sale you need to choose a HIP supplier that will provide you with a quality HIP that meets your needs. Your HIP supplier should;

• Give advice. Be able to give you advice on what should be included to maximise the benefit for the sale of your property.
• Have ‘Local Knowledge’. This is important, however it does not mean that the supplier needs to be based in your locality. The supplier can achieve this in two main ways;
• by using Home Inspectors (rather than Domestic Energy assessors) to carry out inspections and provide local knowledge. All Full HIPs inspectors are Home Inspectors who live locally to the location of the property requiring the HIP.
• by employing someone who understands different types of house construction, their defects, the geology of the different areas of the country and a knowledge of online resources that can give accurate details of local conditions such as , flooding, mining hazards, gas and many other hazards. Full HIP employs someone like this (me).
• Provide copies in various formats including a printed copy. Printed copies, electronic copy and online viewing facilities should be provided as standard and included in the price. Many Providers do not offer printed versions at all and others charge extra, sometimes a lot extra. A printed copy is very important, ideally at least two – this gives you maximum flexibility. In many cases it is much easier to give someone a printed copy to look at than to arrange electronic viewing.
• Be a company that you feel you can trust (just like you might choose a solicitor, local tradesman, surveyor or architect etc.).
• Publish their Code of Conduct, Terms & Conditions, Complaints Procedure and Privacy Policy.
• Be independent. This may or may not matter to you depending on your views (see below).

So, where can I get a HIP?

The easy option is to leave it to an Estate Agent but this is unlikely to be your best option. You have four main options;

• A direct HIP Provider.  This option puts you fully in control of your own HIP and gives you total freedom on how you choose to market your property, be it privately or through an Estate Agent. However, there are two basic types of direct HIP Providers;
• Independent Provider such as Full HIP. This means that the Provider is not associated with any other Property Services such as Estate Agency, Mortgage Lender, or professionals such as Solicitors, Licensed Conveyancers or Chartered Surveyors. It effectively means that you will not be pressurised to sign up to any of these services. With direct Providers, supplying HIPs is a core part of their business and must be successful for the company to survive. Thus it is in our best interests to ensure you get the best advice and quality HIPs possible so that you recommend us to anyone else you know who might be selling their house.
• Associated Provider. This type of provider will have available another service such as those mentioned above. This will either be because they receive a commission for introducing you to another service or are part of a company who provides such services. In the latter case the HIP part of the business is probably not a core part of the business and may just be a loss leader in order to attract customers to where the ‘real money’ is made. That is not to say that all such providers cannot provide a good service, some can and do. However for some, providing HIPs is not their first priority. You just need to consider if they meet the requirements previously listed when choosing.
• An Estate Agent. This option can best described as like going to a restaurant and asking a perfect stranger to choose a meal for you. If you allow the Estate Agent to organise your HIP this is what you are effectively doing. The only advantage is that you can forget about it but is that what you really want to do when the speed at which you sell and the price you sell for may be dependant on the HIP? So here are a summary of the reasons of why you should NOT allow an Estate Agent to arrange your HIP.
• Are you willing to leave such an important document to an Estate Agent?
• In most cases they will get the HIP from a 3rd party. You will know nothing about the company supplying your HIP and have no control of what goes in the HIP.
• The HIP most probably won’t belong to you. If the agent doesn’t perform and you decide to terminate their agreement they will charge you for the HIP at a price you’ve probably never agreed (part of legitimate marketing expenses). In all probability you won’t be able to take the HIP with you thus a 2nd HIP will need to be obtained all over again. If you do allow an Estate Agent to supply your HIP make very sure you understand the terms & conditions under which it is being supplied; actual price, when you pay, what happens if you change agents and will you know who asks to see the HIP?
• It is likely that you will end up paying considerably more than if you bought your HIP direct yourself.
• It is unlikely that they will supply anything other than the very minimum required to satisfy the legislation
• It is very unlikely that you will be contacted by the company supplying the HIP.
• The HIP will not be optimised for your property
• You are relying on the agent to bring the HIP to the prospective Buyer’s attention. Most agents would rather HIPs weren’t there so they are unlikely to volunteer to remind the prospective Buyer that a HIP is available.
• You will probably have to ask them if you can see the HIP on your own property.
• Unless you ask you will never know which buyers have asked to see the HIP.
• An online Private Selling Service. Mostly the same as for Estate Agents however some will refer you to a HIP provider (often referred to as Partners) and you buy it direct from them.
• Solicitor or Conveyancer. This can be a satisfactory option provided they do the HIP themselves. So if you choose to let your Solicitor provide the HIP make sure you ask if they actually compile the HIP themselves. The disadvantage of using Solicitors is that they are unlikely to have much technical ‘local knowledge ‘ in terms of local conditions for house construction and environment. Also, with the hourly rate of solicitors being what it is there is not enough profit from HIPs to justify their time so many actually also use 3rd parties just like the Estate Agent. All one can comment about this is that intuitively a Solicitor’s 3rd party HIP is likely to have more credibility than that of an Estate Agent or online Private House Selling Service.
• Compile your your own (see Can I compile my own HIP in the Full HIP FAQ).