Estate Agent Today

An almighty row has erupted after hundreds of Tory MPs and candidates were spammed with an email from AHIPP.

AHIPP is considering suing what is, from yesterday, its former public affairs company.

The email, with director general Mike Ockenden’s name at the bottom, was sent to every Tory MP and candidate in the country, including those in Scotland where there are no HIPs.

David Cameron and shadow housing minister Grant Shapps were among the recipients of the email, which described the Tories as “irrational and regressive”.

Sent out by AHIPP’s lobbying and PR firm Luther Pendragon, the email thanked everyone for having written to AHIPP – when many hadn’t – and exhorted them to come to their own personal conclusions about HIP, regardless of the party line.

A furious Shapps said: “This is one of the most crass examples of public affairs I have ever seen from a lobbying company. Spamming parliamentary candidates with political abuse from a company email address hardly displays the intelligent political awareness that Luther Pendragon proclaim on their website.

“Email has great potential to engage Parliamentary candidates with the public in the forthcoming general election. Yet the public affairs industry needs to realise that, like poorly targeted, unsolicited press releases, email also has the potential to annoy and undermine the very issues you are championing.

“Conservatives are happy to talk to the housing industry over our plans to scrap Home Information Packs, but personal, angry campaigns are not a great way to win friends and influence people.”

Yesterday, an angry Ockenden told Estate Agent Today: “While I put my name to the email, I was told that five different ones would be going out to MPs and candidates, depending on their level of engagement.  I am taking legal advice on this.”

The PR firm acting for AHIPP was Quintus, which has recently been acquired by Luther Pendragon. The AHIPP account had already been resigned by the PR firm which cited “strategic and tactical differences” but was working out its notice.

Yesterday afternoon, Ockenden stormed into the firm’s offices and terminated the arrangement with immediate effect. He immediately approached his previous PR firm, Wriglesworth, to resume work for him.  Yesterday evening, Wriglesworth sent out a statement saying: “Luther Pendragon have been most unprofessional and are in breach of contract.”

A Luther Pendragon spokeswoman agreed that the firm had been working out its notice with AHIPP  but that AHIPP had terminated this yesterday. She declined to comment on Ockenden taking legal advice.

She said: “In the course of our work for AHIPP, letters were sent by email to a number of MPs and PPCs, including Conservative MPs and candidates on 19th February.

“Luther Pendragon had resigned the account earlier in the month and received formal acceptance of this from AHIPP. This decision was reached due to differences of opinion between the agency and the client relating to strategy and tactics.

“However, as part of honouring our contractual notice period and continuing to deliver a service to the client, these letters were sent from a company email address. These were signed by the client, expressed their views and were sent out at their request. In this instance, we were acting as a functionary on behalf of a client passing on their views to relevant political stakeholders. However, due to a one-off administrative error, the communication was sent out directly from us, rather than from the client themselves, which is not our normal practice.

“Subsequently, AHIPP has apologised directly to those who took offence at the content.”

The email at the centre of the storm is reproduced below.

Dear XXXXXXX

Many thanks for your response to my earlier correspondence on Home Information Packs. Whilst I appreciate there is an established Party line on this issue, I am disappointed that you did not take the opportunity to review the evidence for yourself and come to your own informed conclusion. I hope you will consider this letter and take a personal stance on the issue.

Grant Shapps, the Shadow Housing Minister, believes that scrapping HIPs would be a popular and inexpensive manifesto commitment.  Having adopted a perceived vote-winning policy in a neglected area, Mr Shapps has chosen to ignore the many voices and reams of evidence pointing towards the need for further reform through the development of the HIP product.

Consumers, stakeholders across the property industry and the press are clear that the future of home buying and selling lies in Exchange-Ready products. These products reduce cost, delay and stress from the process of buying a home, and the removal of the requirement to produce a HIP provides an ideal opportunity to introduce them. Grant Shapps’ refusal to introduce Exchange-Ready products is irrational and regressive.

A policy to scrap HIPs with no mandatory replacement will cause enormous short-term damage to the housing market. Following the election of a Government with a commitment to scrap HIPs, homeowners will delay selling their home until they are scrapped. This would stifle any hopes of a long-overdue recovery in the housing market.
 
The market will also suffer damage in the long term. Before HIPs, the unavailability of reliable information and legal documents early in the home buying and selling process were the prime cause of stress, delay and abortive transactions, which cost consumers approximately £1 million every day. With this information provided in the right format, at the right time and at the right price through a HIP, costs are kept down, transactions run more smoothly and professionals like lawyers and estate agents are freed to carry out their specialist work.

Critics of the HIP claim that the searches included are not authoritative, and lawyers are commissioning their own searches. The most recent report by the Property Codes Compliance Board, which regulates property searches, showed that there were no differences in quality between the searches in HIP Code compliant HIPs and searches provided by the Local Authority. Critics also say that HIPs add cost to the home buying process. This is simply not the case, as the savings made through efficient search delivery outweigh the upfront cost of the packs. The reduction in the cost of moving home seen over the past two years has been as a direct result of the introduction of HIPs, and scrapping HIPs would increase costs once again.

Finally, Grant Shapps assures voters that he will retain the Energy Performance Certificate element of the HIP, as he accepts that it is a crucial tool in reducing carbon emissions. He has, however, ignored evidence from all other European Union member states that have attempted to introduce the EPC as a stand-alone document. In Northern Ireland, where there are no HIPs, 45% of houses are sold without an EPC, versus less than 5% in England. Indeed, in the rental or commercial property sectors in the UK, where HIPs are not required the levels of non-compliance are over 40% and 73% respectively. No member state has managed to achieve meaningful levels of compliance with the requirement to produce an EPC, except for states that require it as part of a HIP-style pack. There is no reason why the UK would be different.

Grant Shapps has ignored calls from the HIP industry, the Law Society, Which?, numerous estate agents and consumers, for further reform taking into account the progress made through the HIP. He has ignored his own research and consultation exercise, the 2007 Home Buying Review. This exercise, which sought to investigate the possibilities for further reform, was cancelled shortly after Owen Inskip, an independent expert, submitted his report. This has never since been released, despite repeated requests. Should he be elected, by the time Grant Shapps consults on his proposals, with the market in turmoil and jobs already under threat, it is likely to be too late to build on the achievements of the HIP.
 
I hope you will give all of these issues your urgent attention. Grant Shapps intends to make a national election issue of his opposition to HIPs, but he underestimates the industry’s ability to make the case for itself with voters. I hope, that having considered the issues, you will write to me outlining your own position on the issue.

Yours sincerely

Mike Ockenden
Director General AHIPP