UPFRONT INFORMATION – The Return of HIPS, or something else?

UPFRONT INFORMATION –The Return of HIPS, or something else?

Whenever I see postings form any of the many property industry groups involved, I see comments from conveyancers dreading the return of HIPs. As it has now been 13 years since they were abolished, there are many in practice now who do not remember the chaotic way in which they were brought in over a period of years by one Government, only to be scrapped in a moment by the next regime.

The principle of the new rumblings remain the same –buyers having more information about the property they are interested in, getting valuable information about it upfront before they even appoint a conveyancer, saving much time, money and angst later in the process. For a while, during HIPs, search companies worked for Estate Agents and provided all of the usual search reports for them to show and provide to prospective purchasers.

The fact, that in anything other than a booming market, those searches got out of date and needed to be re-commissioned, costing everyone double the costs, and taking double the time, is the inconvenient truth. And that is why they were binned so promptly by David Cameron.

The new “groups” I refer to are numerous:

HBSG – The Home Buying and Selling Group who pressurise DHLUC (the new Department including Housing and its many (revolving door) Ministers),

OPDA – Open Property Data Association (whose purpose is to set Data standards across the other groups)

DPMSG – Digital Property Market Steering Group (a GOV.UK group of all parties involved including HMLR)

There are more.

I recently attended the DPMSG Conference, which was very much seen as an HMLR event, as they organised it mostly. I have to say that I left very disheartened and fearful for the future of property information.

The day was introduced by the Home Buying and Selling Group, whose representative said three times how these groups have been talking to the “wrong people”, or not talking to “those on the ground”, sadly so very true..

I was nodding my head furiously as I have tried to liaise these groups over many years only to be rejected at every turn. For some, they just don’t see the value in 30 plus years’ experience in searches for free, for others I am not a sponsor, so I don’t get a seat.

That is my little rant, but you will now see the importance of such an approach by the people deciding (or wanting to decide) the future of conveyancing. In the onstage panel forum, the person chosen to represent searches was someone who has never done a search in his life, but he was from a sponsor.

Local, Drainage and Environmental Searches are, obviously, the staple three documents that companies like HW provide to conveyancers. Can these be included in upfront information?

Well, I would say that the drainage and environmental searches can survive pretty much all transaction lengths, but there is a big problem with including a Local Search (LLC1 and CON29) upfront. There is the obvious time lag for starters, the upfront pack can be ready within 24/48 hours, but the delays caused by Council Departments, mean that the Local Search could take upto 20 working days to complete.

I described the way things are going at the conference over lunchtime to another delegate as being “like a Lego car”, he laughed and asked me to explain. So I did:

“The car looks lovely when it is unveiled, but the people cutting the ribbon and proudly unveiling this shiny masterpiece have absolutely no idea that a lot of the bricks used are either broken or have faults. But al the right shapes and colours are in the right place, so surely… But, they push the car to great applause.

The wheels fall off.”

And here’s why the whole project is flawed, only in relation to the Local search, there will doubtless be many, many other parts, but I will stick to what I know:

1. There is an assumption that the upfront searches will all be in the pack and updated at a click of a mouse instantly via the HMLR Local Land Charges Register. That Register has taken 5 years to get to 25% capacity, by current trend graphs, it will complete in 2037.

2. That Register is deeply flawed. In just the 70 (out of 317) Council areas, there are dozens of errors reported by search companies, mostly ironed out before the conveyancer has sight of the raw data.

3. The Register is only LLC1. That is the front page of a search, not even half of it. It does not include refused planning applications, pre-1974 conservation areas which also affect trees, highways adoption extents, footpaths, and much more, crucially Building Regulation History.

I am an SRA approved trainer on Local Land Charges Searches (the only one), and I spend 2/3rds of my training time on how CON29 and LLC1 cross-reference each other. An HMLR LLC1 on its own is a complete waste of £15 before anything else is started.

Because the people involved have blindly marched on without talking to the right people, my big fear is that we face a future where there will actually be no upfront information, because there are either huge holes in what is needed (CON29), or the data sources (HMLR LLC) are incomplete (2037?) or not to be relied upon, that we will see the American model of “insure it and be damned.”

They want to save time, money and help the consumer. They risk destroying a system which has protected the consumer since 1974. 

Andrew Prismall

Managing Director of HW Conveyancing Searches

Andrew Prismall is also Chairman of the independent search companies trade body (IPSA) and sits on various HMLR working groups, as well as being a member of other property organisations such as The Conveyancing Association. The views in this article are his own.