After HIPs – Changes to Flat Buying?

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Land Data is the official government appointed organisation that manages and regulates the National Land Information Service (NLIS) providing consumers with official electronic land and property information and is the only provider in England and Wales. Jan Boothroyd, their Chief Executive, has said that Home Information Packs almost immediately became synonymous with price and the reduction in price was mirrored by a reduction in the quality of property searches contained within the pack. Ultimately this exposed consumers to incomplete and out of date information, often insufficient for the needs of a buyer, which led to the buyer’s conveyancer ordering searches for the property again and the unsatisfactory situation where the seller and the buyer were both paying for searches.

With the removal of HIPs Land Data has called for Government to look at new initiatives to improve the home buying process and they believe making official searches compulsory will not only protect the home buying public from poor search practices but will bring instant clarity to a confused market. They say that consumer interests are best served by official, indemnified authoritative data from local authorities, water companies, Land Registry and The Coal Authority.

One simple online search to provide all the information required for a property purchase. Sounds good to me!