Home Information Pack

England’s Housing Act of 2004 required home owners to provide a HIP to potential buyers. The HIP (Home Information Pack) contains information and documents about the home.

According to this article by the Daily Star, Ministers have said that the HIPs are useless when it comes to haunted homes. Under the 2004 act, you are not required to reveal if your home is infested with ghosts. Or rats for that matter.

I don’t own a home, nor do I want to own one in the U.S. but when I do decide that the economy is in better health, I think I might like to own a home in Greece. I love Greece. Rest assured that I would be asking about any haunted history in any house that I look at.

In fact, I do that with apartments. Like that old saying goes “Better safe than sorry.”

Full source: Daily Star UK

MINISTERS have been blasted after they said Home Information Packs don’t have to reveal if a house might be haunted.
Sellers can withhold crucial details that could affect the price of a property.
And the £300-a-time HIPs don’t even have to say if a house could be inhabited by a ghost.

The Government admitted HIPs were not obliged to warn buyers of anything else that went bump in the night – like noisy pubs or clubs.
One source said: “It seems you don’t have a ghost of a chance of finding out what could be wrong with your new dream home.”
Other problems like dry rot or rat infestation also don’t have to be included in the dodgy dossiers.

Last night Tory shadow housing minister Grant Shapps branded the HIPs “utterly untrustworthy”.
He said: “Home Information Packs aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

“If buyers trust these dodgy ­dossiers I fear they will be lulled into a false sense of security about the true state of the local ­neighbourhood and the property.

“Sellers have no incentive to ­include many types of vital ­information about a home, making these expensive packs utterly ­untrustworthy and misleading. The word ‘buyer beware’ should be branded on the front of every Home Information Pack.”

The shortcomings of HIPs emerged in a series of ­Parliamentary questions from ­Conservative shadow communities minister Lord Bates on what ­buyers can expect from HIPs.

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communities Lord ­McKenzie said: “None of the ­documents that are required to be included in the HIP will reveal whether the property is reputedly haunted or suffers noise ­disturbance from nearby licensed premises.”

Last night critics said the ­Government response showed how useless the packs were to ­home buyers.

One critic said: “It’s a waste of time and money if they don’t answer the sort of questions people want answered. People might think it’s funny to ask about ghosts but it’s no joke if you’re up all night because no one was compelled to tell you about the pub at the end of the road.”

Earlier this year research showed more than half of all home sales went through without HIP ­reports while town hall chiefs hadn’t levied a single £200 fine on an offender.

One senior Tory said: “We will scrap it at the first opportunity.”