|
Issue 24 : 1 November 2007
www.homeinformationpacks.gov.uk this Issue In
Consumer redress and estate agents
Bulletin & roundup
Your questions
EPCs and climate change
In the next issue…
Consumer redress and estate agents
Home Information Pack legislation means that estate agents in England and Wales marketing homes for sale with HIPs are required to belong to an approved redress scheme for HIP-related complaints. From 10 September this has applied to all homes marketed with three or more bedrooms. Douglas Taylor of the HIP Programme Team explains…
Approved redress schemes will be able to deal with a range of complaints about estate agents relating to their acts or omissions in relation to a HIP (including the giving of advice as to whether such a Pack is required) and award redress where complaints are upheld. In addition, administrators of approved redress schemes will have to pass information regarding misconduct of estate agents to Trading Standards and the Office of Fair Trading, which has the option of conducting a fitness test, which could lead to a ban, if it deems this to be appropriate.
On 26 October the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) approved a third HIPs redress scheme run by IDRS Ltd, the independent dispute resolution service provider. The scheme is known as PACS and will launch formally on 1 December 2007. IDRS are now accepting applications from estate agents for membership. Further information is available on the PACS website.
This follows approval earlier in the year of a scheme run by the Ombudsman for Estate Agents (OEA) and The Surveyors Ombudsman Scheme run by the The Ombudsman Service Ltd (TOSL) for RICS members.
For further information on consumer redress against estate agents click here
Bulletin & roundup
Recent e-alerts
On 25 September, an e-alert was sent notifying you about new functionality to automatically retrieve EPCs and HCRs from the central Register. Users may retrieve reports from the Registers either via the public website
http://www.epcregister.com or http://www.hcrregister.com
On 23 October, an e-alert was sent to estate agents on stakeholder feedback on implementation, benefits of sharing HIPs with clients and next steps.
Thank you
In the last issue of PROGRESS, we asked our readers to share their experiences of using HIPs. Thank you to all those who responded. We received a good mix and number of responses and we will be following these up.
Your questions
The HIPS Team fields a large number of enquiries from consumers and stakeholders on HIPs policy. Here we feature some of the more unusual ones that would be of interest to others:
Q. I am selling my property which includes fourteen acres of land. An estate agent has told me that I will not need a HIP. Is this true?
A. It depends. If your house is being marketed as a residential property then yes, you will require a HIP, regardless of the amount of surrounding land. However, if the property is a farm and being sold as such, you will not need to commission a HIP.
Click here to visit our the sellers’ FAQ section of our website.
EPCs and climate change
The EPC is an important part of the HIP and underlines the Government’s commitment to cut greenhouse emissions. Here we feature some core facts about climate change and how EPC recommendations can help tackle global climate change.
Did you know?
If everyone with gas central heating installed a new condensing boiler we’d save over 13 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, as much as the annual emissions of over 2 million homes.
[Source: Energy Savings Trust]
For more information on EPCs and green issues visit:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/epbd
http://www.energysavingstrust.org.uk
In the next issue…
In the next issue of PROGRESS we plan to take a closer look at the issues surrounding New Builds and Developments.
If you have specific questions on builds and developments, please get in touch with the Home Information Packs Programme Team by e-mailing: homeinfopacks@communities.gsi.gov.uk
|
