Legally avoid HIPs home sellers pack and the EPC.

Here is our legal guide to avoiding the home sellers pack HIPs or Home information pack.

With no legal definition of a bedroom as David Marsden, the head of the property department at law firm Matthew Arnold and Baldwin, pointed out.

He said: “Under planning law, it is about whether rooms are habitable, not whether they are bedrooms or not.”

Therefore call your bedrooms, rooms you are HIPs and EPC free on all homes,  1 bed, 2 bed, 3 bed and 4 bedrooms and larger properties.

Consider this, if estate agents can avoid the HIPs legislation, by using the format below, so can you.

If you place an ad in the local paper to sell your home, use this format and save the cost of the HIP and the EPC and the 2% [plus vat] estate agents fees. Cost to you around £60.

Spacious family home, large gardens & double garage

2 reception plus kitchen and utility room

4 rooms upstairs plus en suite and bathroom.

Boarded atic with ladder

£350000 freehold

Here are some comments on the Sellers pack and the EPC to help you decide to avoid it.

Baroness Deech some people do not sell their family home for 20, 30 or 40 years, in which case there will be no energy inducement; there will be no need to get an Energy performance certificate and no need to think about energy improvements.

Tacking on the energy certificate to house sale does not make sense. see post on HIPs and energy-performance concerns/

Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services.

We do not believe that the introduction of HIPs will prevent the process from remaining fragmented as it will always consist of a chain of buying/selling transactions requiring a number of parties working in conjunction to complete transactions successfully.

Yvette Cooper (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Department for Communities and Local Government) | Hansard source

We set out details in the home information packs regulations and commencement order which were published on 11 June 2007.

Answer.. Home Information Packs will be implemented on a phased basis starting on 1 August 2007, from which date owners of properties with 4 or more bedrooms will need to produce a HIP.

So there you have it market your home as Property with 4 or more rooms upstairs, you are then quite legally HIPS and energy performance report EPC free.

From the Energy assessors forum, Quote.

“I have just looked up in a couple of the big property websites in Bristol and Bath, and it lists hundreds and hundreds, certainly well over 600 for sales in this area alone, in Avon its more like over a thousand.
With 4 Bed I think we should all charge a premium, in fact we could act like surveyors and charge a blood fortunelegally avoid hips
home sellers pack