Landlords are being dragged into the great HIPs debate
with news that the Government plans to require rental
properties to have energy certificates as from October
next year. As yet no further details are available.
The
cost is likely to be at least £200
per property.
With three weeks to go before the planned introduction
of home information packs as a compulsory pre-requisite
to house sale, the Government appears to be facing down
strong criticism from the property industry and the House
of Lords. The last hope of a change of heart appears
to centre on an early day motion from Conservative leader
David Cameron calling for HIPs to be scrapped which is
due to be debated next week
One of the worries is that there will be insufficient
trained and accredited home inspectors and domestic energy
assessors ready to produce HIPs documents. But this is
simply not true, the Association of Home Information
Pack Providers has claimed. After surveying 10 training
and assessment centres it is confidents there will be
more than 3,500 inspector and assessors by 1 June.
'Opponents
of Home Information Packs have erroneously reported
that up to 7,500 energy
assessors will be needed
for 1 June and that there will be a shortfall of thousands.
This figure became redundant on 18 July last year when
Home Condition Reports were made voluntary, yet has been
used erroneously and irresponsibly by some parties on
a number of occasions recently. In fact, around 2,500
full time assessors will be needed by June.
'The training and assessment centres surveyed
have told us that there will be at least 1,130 home inspectors
and over 2,400 DEAs ready to undertake inspections for
June’, said AHIPP director general Mike Ockenden.
The
cost of HIPs will be between £300 and £400,
inclusive of the cost of an energy performance certificate,
claimed AHIPP.
Meanwhile estate agent members of the Royal Institution
of Chartered Surveyors face a hitch that could prevent
them providing home information packs when they become
mandatory as from 1 June.
RICS has made an application for its Surveyor Ombudsman
Scheme to be approved to handle complaints against agents
doing estate agency work for Home Information Packs but
has been told by the Department of Trade and Industry
that it cannot guarantee that approval will be granted
in time for 1 June.
RICS
has advised members that if they are going to undertake
HIPs related work from 1 June
they will need to be covered
by an approved redress mechanism. If they are not covered
they will be committing an offence under the Housing
Act 2004. One option would be to join the Ombudsman for
Estate Agents scheme which is the only redress scheme
that has so far received DTI approval. Another would
be to refrain from engaging in HIP-related work until
the RICS scheme has been approved – probably by
mid June.
The Ombudsman for Estate Agents recently expressed regret
that the RICS had not joined his scheme but was going
its own route to instituting a redress scheme.
• Energy ratings are likely to become a key residential
property selling point, the not disinterested
energy-assessors.com
has claimed. ‘Introduction of Energy Performance
Certificates in June will bring the matter of energy
saving in the home to the fore’, said director
Stephen Callaghan. ‘While many people are concerned
about the cost of energy saving technology, they should
focus on making simple, small changes, such as buying
a hot water tank jacket, installing low energy light
bulbs, or even just switching off appliances after use.
Saving energy and improving the rating of our homes will
deliver a long lasting benefit’.
