June 2007

HIPs look dead and buried now

Brown will deliver the final blow

THE plans for Home Information Packs are now in complete disarray.

A week after I sat in the House of Commons and watched as politicians voted in favour of the Packs, there was Ruth Kelly banging a rusty old nail in the HIPs coffin.

I would lay money on HIPs being totally dead and buried before this year is out, with Gordon Brown sure to hammer the final blow.

The more I think about Communities and Local Government Secretary Ms Kelly’s latest announcement, introducing HIPs for four bedroom homes and social housing from August 1, the more ridiculous it seems.

Aside from the devastating consequences within our hips.co.uk pack provider business, which has led to me laying off 30 well-trained call centre staff, there is simply no logic behind the decision that’s been made.

Why should people in social housing or their landlords be penalised? They’re the least likely to be able to afford the extra cost associated with this legislation.

And what about the stealth tax at the other end of the scale for those with four or more bedrooms? Can you imagine how many houses are going to be billed as three beds with box room or study? E-Bay will be awash with single beds as everyone tries to auction them off!

Did Ruth Kelly pluck this fanciful idea of starting with these properties from thin air? Because I don’t recall any consultation within the industry on this at all.

The Government must now see sense and use this as an opportunity to finally withdraw the legislation and re-evaluate how they should proceed.

My view is that they should scrap HIPs and simply re-introduce the Energy Performance Certificate, the only document that is required by the European Union Directive.

I would also favour a system like they have in Canada, where home improvement grants are available for those whose energy efficiency levels have been assessed.

Pity also the poor Domestic Energy Assessors. Who now will bother to train or pay the extra £300 to become accredited as an assessor, not knowing whether their services will be required?

We’ve calculated that only one in five of our properties have four beds or more, which means we will need far fewer assessors; but it’s unlikely these assessors will be in the right parts of the country to undertake the work required, which means costs will escalate.

How will quality control be maintained? Why the job wasn’t given to estate agents in the first place is beyond me. All they need is extra training and special software that will churn out Energy Performance Certificates.

The public must be totally baffled by the Government’s embarrassing U-turn on a U-turn. If we in the industry don’t know what to do, how will the public understand what’s expected of them?

Organisations like my own at Spicerhaart have had no choice but to invest millions of pounds in gearing up for this new legislation.

We wanted to make hips.co.uk one of the leading Pack providers in the industry and have been giving all our staff intensive training in the legal and procedural aspects of HIPs.

And all for what? If we don’t plan for new legislation, we leave ourselves exposed and vulnerable. But by forward planning, we have incurred massive costs and utilised extensive additional resources.

There are still so many questions that remain unanswered. How much should estate agents charge for a HIP, who will pay for it, how and when will they pay? How will the system be policed? Who will bother with them at all?

I dare say in the months ahead, I will have plenty more to say on this subject, if and when HIPs are finally put to the test.

Educating the public

BARELY a month goes by without me stressing the importance of educating the public about HIPs.

The Government’s own efforts have been poor, so it’s been left to us to identify ways to reach out to our customers.

As part of our own campaign to go that extra mile, hips.co.uk has made a short educational video about HIPs, so that individuals or estate agents can better understand what’s contained within a Pack. It explains the role of the Domestic Energy Assessor and the work that goes in to creating an Energy Performance Certificate.

We also explain why the Government is introducing HIPs, who needs them and the benefits of using hips.co.uk.

The video is presented by hips.co.uk operations manager David Chubb and also contains an interview with hips.co.uk managing director Stephen Nation. Let’s hope that our video gets to see the light of the day - and that it doesn’t need re-editing amid the confusion that now currently reigns.

Giving something to the community

ESTATE agents, on the whole, are an exemplary group when it comes to corporate social responsibility.

As active players in our own communities, it is only right that we should all make an effort to give something back.

After an excellent season of sponsoring football teams right across the UK at all levels, Spicerhaart’s estate agencies have made the decision this year to really push the boat out — not just at football clubs, but in cricket, golf and other sports too.

The pride we feel in seeing our local teams thrive because of our sponsorship, while we benefit from having our name emblazoned on their shirts or around their grounds, is immense.

We have also taken on someone to co-ordinate all our activities and to oversee and expand the charity fundraising that we undertake each year for our own Fantasy Charity Fund, which takes children from hospices across the UK to Disneyland Paris every Christmas.The look on the faces of those children, and on their family’s faces, makes all the fundraising efforts and hard work so worthwhile.