I have compiled my own HIP for around £270 a la advice on government website. Now finding local estate agents won't accept my property for sale using my HIP, spouting about getting fined if it's wrong, and are insisting I get one from their pet HIP provider (at much higher cost). I think this is contra the estate agent code of conduct and not what the government envisaged but without any case law in this area everyone seems to be playing ultra-cautious. My advice at this stage is not to self-compile until a volume of sale transactions have gone through completion to bed the process in. What do others think?

I think that your estate agent needs to do some checking. A HIP needs to have certain documents within. That can easily be verified by looking through it, and the list is available all over the place. There is nothing deeply difficult about what is inthe pack about from the EPC, which has to be done by a certified EPC person.

It'd be interesting to know what the Estate Agent thinks is in their provider's HIP that isn't in yours.

As I am involved in some elements of HIP production, I can't see why a self-compiled HIP would cause any problems whatsoever, as long as you include all the correct details.

The extra cost is simply to pay for the man-power that you have already put in yourself. It seems mad to do it again, considering that it would have the same EPC and search documents anyway. Maybe a different cover :-)

use another agent!

Ignore the Hip thing altogether - it's a £200 fine in a civil court if they catch you and the HIP will cost you £300 to £700.

This is a no-brainer, an even if you get the fine it's a civil court -let 'em chase you through the system if they want, they can't get their costs back - just don't pay the fine.

Controversial!

It goes a bit deeper however, as the fine isn;t to you as an individual, but to the Estate Agent, who is not legally permitted to market a property without a HIP:

"Specifically on the issue of estate agents not complying with the legal duty to belong to an approved redress scheme, local trading standards officers will beable to issue fixed penalty charge notices (of up to £200) for each instance of non-compliance and where they do so will be required to inform the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) of this breach of the agent’s legal duty. Under the Housing Act, if an estate agent does not comply with the legal duty to belong to an approved redress scheme whilst marketing with HIPs, it will be regarded as though it was an undesirable practice under the Estate Agents Act 1979. This means that the OFT will be able to exercise its powers to determine whether that agent is unfit to carry on estate agency work and make a Prohibition Order, banning them from practising as an estate agent"

Once a couple of Estate Agents are taken to court to be made an example of, we might see a change in opinion...

Yes true - but then it's a civil action and the trading standards guys can't reclaim the £2000 costs for bringing the case as they could with a criminal case!

I got that from the Independent Newspaper so it may or may not be true - I'm no lawyer!

Would be interesting to market yourself via a Web site or put up a sign board and see if they can be bothered to prosecute. Worth finding out for £200 I would say.