Nothing good about HIPs, say conveyancers

listen before we dismiss HIPS completely can we at least get the final opinion of sarah beeney?

• 17 March 2010 15:09 PM

I agree with property insider, i am sick of trying to sell HIPs to a public that dosnt want them. Ive used both HIPAG and now a small independant HIP provider and the quicker and cheaper I can get them done the better. I dont think the majority of HIP providers want to do more work on the packs anyway, I think your the exception Rob.

• 17 March 2010 09:23 AM

Rob - the numbers I quoted are from a top 10 HIP provider but I think you'll find they are fairly typical for the 80% of the volume that goes through the top 20% of providers. There may well be greater price competition amongst small independent HIP suppliers but I think you'll find that the big boys (and High Street solicitors where many of these markups were conceived) are doing very nicely out of HIPs. Which would be fine - if HIPs were working. I just find it hard to believe that the majority of volume HIP providers give a monkeys about improving the process. From what I read, I think your intentions are honourable but IMHO, you would do well to create as much distance between you and HIPs as possible if you want agents to listen to your ideas on improving the process. The HIP brand is tainted and a clean break means we can start again.

• 16 March 2010 21:49 PM

Wardy, to answer your question, no not if they help produce them. My point is I have always wanted the conveyancer to get involved to help produce the ERP, our original marketing material made that very clear, but very few do. I add the extras, on occasion (at no extra charge), because I would rather sell a product that helps often than one that helps rarely. PI there are enough Hip providers out there to suit everyones needs, those who buy at the prices you have stated are not forced to, they have other options available to them. Rich, you been drinking?

• 16 March 2010 18:20 PM

Conveyancers surley see an exchange ready HIP as a threat to their industry which proberly accounts for the majority of the 81%. If people like Rob and HIPAG can do the bulk of the work at a resonable price then they are stuffed.

• 16 March 2010 10:31 AM

Don't be entirely taken in by MDA. They messed up when they fell in love with HIPs, but like many others didn't do the maths. Pre HIPs they were be able to charge a living wage for a personal search. The introduction of the personal search into a HIP brought about an all time low in the quality of searches and every tom dick and harry jumped in. MDA can't compete with the rubbish searches produced [I'm not suggesting that MDA personal searches are necessarily any better]and profits have been decimated as far as personal searches are concerned. The dimwits have at last calculated that margins are so low that it is easier to produce one search and charge a decent rate instead of messing around with 5 personal searches for the same margin. They would like two things to happen. 1)revert to pre hips personal searches or 2)to only allow official searches in HIP's - they would love the guaranteed income from INLIS. It hardly required a survey by MDA to confirm that Hips have been a disaster for everyone in the industry (other than the vultures who set up as HIPs compilers. As far as accuracy and content are concerned, all that HIPs have shown is that it has been a licence to print money for the Hip compilers so long as they squeezed every bit of profit out of the search provider.

• 16 March 2010 00:12 AM

'dont look back?' whats this bollox about the system not working before hips?? I ve not met anyone who moaned their loft insulation was to thin while they made 10k a year,,it wasnt broken sopiss off hip leaches.

• 15 March 2010 23:25 PM

come on guys it might take 6 years to sell a house but when you do you can save 3 hours on legal time,,and, it only costs £300!! bargain..

• 15 March 2010 23:22 PM

Yeah you're probably right, Rob. There can't be many taking as little as £150 out. What with the £10 to £150 on a personal search, £5 on office copies, £30 on a TT fee, £20 on coal and CON29DW, £10 for an ID check, £50 for a leasehold supplement, £50 for title unsurance - PLUS whatever they can make on the purchase conveyancing if they can get it, I'd be surprised if any of them are in for less than £300 a go. As for the too little too late argument, do you have any actual evidence that transaction times and abortive rates weren't falling month on month, year on year in 2006-2007 - because mine were, on hundreds if not thousands of deals but by then, the relentless march to implement the HIP meant that all MDA, Live, LMS etc could see was £ signs. So - for all of your good intentions, your industry as a whole is so shark infested that its continued existence is entirely detrimental to the recovery of the market.

• 15 March 2010 17:46 PM

PI, the progress you refer to in 2007 was too little too late (if it had been more and earlier Hips would not have been introduced). We need every party in the chain to be pro active all the time. Going back to square one means we won't see real progress in my lifetime and whilst not a spring chicken I am not past my sell by date yet! I admit that we have a square wheel, but if we simply discard it completely it will take an awful long time to create a new round one. I appreciate your comments but, like agents and conveyancers, not all Hip providers or their employees are bad apples. If we keep some form of pack in place and build on it, the good professional providers will rise to the surface be they agents, conveyancers or Hip providers. By the way, I don't know any Hip provider who takes £150.00 out of every deal for themselves?

• 15 March 2010 16:37 PM

Rob - you say "The Hip in its current format is not the answer but neither is turning the clock back". I have to disagree. Imagine we turn the clock back to 2007. Conveyancing was increasingly no sale no fee; some providers were starting to introduce no sale no fee searches including Con29DW, Land Reg and Enviro. Agents were making a reasonable fee for introducing a client to a conveyancer. Yes transactions fell through but they still do More switched on agents and conveyancers were measuring transaction times and closing the gap between offer and exchange. The only difference between now and 2007 is that HIP providers, packagers, bundlers and bunglers weren't taking an additional £150 out of every deal and. So tell me again, why is it that we shouldn't turn back the clock? I'm sorry but the property industry would be a better place without a single HIP provider in it. With the HIP absolutely and totally scrapped, we can start again and this time take small baby steps to improve processes by market driven innovation. The HIP industry and the politically driven wonks behind it are thoroughly discredited.

• 15 March 2010 16:03 PM

Rob Hailstone:
After nearly 40 years in the business I really am grey you know!
However, I do not want to turn the clock back to the times when solicitors/conveyancers controlled the speed of transactions at a snails pace. My real point is that the conveyancer should be able to produce "HIP type documentation" in a "one stop solicitor/conveyancing shop". Which should speed up everything and also reduce the overall cost?

• 15 March 2010 15:04 PM

Grey Evans (sorry but to good to miss!), we appear to be in almost total agreement, but you are a better man than me if you can make that happen! If you visit www.theboldgroup.co.uk and look at The Problem with Hips on the Join page you will see my suggestions as to a possible practical way forward. Reducing the cost of the pack, allowing earlier marketing and making the pack more useful. The Hip in its current format is not the answer but neither is turning the clock back!

• 15 March 2010 13:58 PM

IF, MASSIVE IF, HIPs have improved property transactions in any way, the difference is so minute, that the cost, aggro and hassle is not worthwhile to keep them running. The reality is that transaction times have come down (by a FRACTION) since HIPs were introduced. The people with vested interests will say it IS because of HIPs - the majority will say it is because there are far less proeprties on the market now. A contributing factor of the lower volumes of properties being marketed is the introduction of HIPs. The property market was booming a few years ago and everything was running smoothly without HIPs. I know people who are ready to move house, but will not be doing so for the next few months, with the hope that Tories can sort this mess out and ditch this expensive and unnecessary add on.

• 15 March 2010 13:20 PM

The HIP is not fit for purpose and just adds to costs.
ALL that is required is to make it compulsory to instruct a conveyancer at the same time as marketing starts - with a requirement that draft contracts, searches and vendors questionaire is completed within say 14 days.

• 15 March 2010 12:36 PM

Rob - I couldn't agree more. The HIP alone is a worthless product if conveyancers fail to endorce. All that's needed is for sellers to instruct a Solicitor/Conveyancer whilst the property is being marketed in order to complete the majority of the paperwork. It's not Brain Surgery?!!

• 15 March 2010 12:25 PM

Well if Grant Shapps thinks the property industry is going to improve the home buying and selling process without some form of incentive or madation this story pretty much proves otherwise. It would appear that the majority of conveyancers make no effort to make the Hip exchange ready, nor have any desire to do so. One of our (Hipags) sellers has recently asked me to make her Hip as exchange ready as possible in an effort to speed up her eventual sale. I have done that by adding another 15 extra documents, including a 20 page property questionairre. It was not difficult. All I am doing is bringing the process forward by a number of weeks and putting those extra documents in before the buyers conveyancer requests them. It has to mmake sense, doesn't it? Of course the buyers conveyancer will check the Hip and the documents but hopefully 90%, or more, of the conveyancing, will have been carried out up front.

• 15 March 2010 12:00 PM

At last ! ! !

Maybe we are going to see the HIP abolished.

Fingers crossed as i think it stops people trying the market and has caused a massive lose in the current stock levels.

• 15 March 2010 10:30 AM