From the point of view of a London Solicitor the Home Information Pack is still useful as long as it does not delay the marketing of the property. As a London Solicitor dealing with many conveyancing transactions on a daily basis we find the Home Information Pack useful in that it clearly lays out all the required information about a property. These forms could otherwise take weeks and even months to gather and in the pre Home Information Pack days the sale was delayed while the seller was gathering this information. In particular as a London Solicitor we are dealing with a significant number of leasehold properties which seem to be proceeding through to completions much more swiftly with the Home Information Pack in place.

As a London Solicitor that works with many estate agents we are aware of the pressures these estate agents are under. The present Home Information Pack regulations recently changed making it compulsory for anyone marketing a property to have a Home Information Pack in place ready to give to prospective buyers. Now, a Home Information Pack can take up to two weeks to prepare and as such this could be causing delays and consequently damaging the prospect of selling a property in an already harsh economic climate. Of course the rules are the same for energy performance certificates which are meant to be a mandatory component of the Home Information Pack.

Any serious conveyancer must be prepared and geared up to providing HIPs. This is even more so if you are a London Solicitor providing conveyancing services. In Denmark lawyers lost 50% of the conveyancing market when they introduced the equivalent to a HIP because the conveyancing was done by non-lawyers who tied up with estate agents to provide HIPs and off of the back of this they were getting the conveyancing too. Hence the lesson to be learnt from this is that solicitors need to provide Home Information Packs if they are to survive in conveyancing. Remember that if you are providing HIPs you are onto a winner but if you slip up with the HIP the estate agent will severe ties with you very quickly.