AHIPP round up.

As part of our membership of AHIPP (Association of Home Information Pack Providers) we receive regular reviews covering HIPs and the state of the property market.

The AHIPP summary includes;

• Local Authorities have yet to state the revised charge they will make for the LLC1 (request for searches). It maybe the case that Authorities will each charge different amounts hence HIPs will need to be priced "individually" rather than via a standard, fixed, rate.

• Rightmove are suggesting property prices have risen by 1.2% in February.

• The NAEA (National Association of Estate Agents) have asked, again, for Stamp Duty to be suspended in order to support the market.

• The NAEA suggested that on average estate agents property listings rose from 200 to 242 in December. Which is encouraging.

• RICs (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) have stated that the number of "buyer enquiries" rose for the third month in a row.

• The CLG (Communities & Local Government) published their house price statistics... which suggested that property prices fell by 10.2% in the 12 months to December 2008. A further comment was made that 6.4% of the drop was accounted for in the last 3 months of the year.

• According to the CML (Council of Mortgage Lenders) mortgage lending was only 52% of the January 2008 total. This particular indicator isn't surprising given activity in the market towards the end of last year.

• HIP Code. In light of the revisions to the HIP regulations which happen on the 6th April the HIP Code is being revised to take into account the forthcoming changes.

Jon Hilton

23.02.09