Home Information Pack - Check List

This is a check list to show the basic set of documents that are required to compile a home information pack to enable you to market your house. There will be many providers of HIPs who will include a lot more in a pack for you - but this is all that is absolutely required by law for an existing property that you have a freehold on. There is a little more required for if your freehold is within a commonhold property or if you have a leasehold, details for these will be coming soon.

1) Home Information Pack Index

Your pack must contain an index detailing all of the documentation contained within it.

2) Sale Statement

You must produce a sale statement detailing
i) The address of your property
ii) Whether it is freehold or leasehold
iii) If it is registered at the Land Registry
iv) Name of the seller and their capacity
v) If the property is being sold with vacant possession, or if not,
vi) In what way is it being sold

Visit this page to produce a sale statement for your house

3) Land Registry documents

Assuming your property is registered, which assuming it is an existing house it should be, then there are two documents required from the Land Registry.
i) Official copy of the Register of Title
ii) Official copy of the Title Plan

Both of these documents can be downloaded from the land registry at a cost of £2 each.

4) New Homes Warranty

If your house is relatively new it may still be under the original warranty from the house builder, if this is the case then you must include it in the home information pack.

5) Any Home Condition Report from the last 12 months

If any HCR's have been carried out on the house within the last 12 months, for example if you bought the house less than a year ago from someone who had chosen to commission a report as part of their home information pack.

6) Home Energy Certificate

A home energy certificate is a document that gives your house an energy rating on a scale of A to G rather like you'd currently get on electrical appliances. This certificate will have to be produced by a qualified inspector who will need to visit your house to determine it's rating. It is unclear what the market rate for this is going to be, but indication are that it is likely to cost you in the region of Ł150 - Ł200.

7) Searches

There are 3 types of required searches that must be included in the home information pack, these are:-

i) Local Land Charges search
Also known as an LLC1 search after the name of the Law Society form that is used to submit a request for this type of search to a local council. This search returns basic information about your property and anything that may directly affect it, such as outstanding planning applications and building regulations notices. You can apply directly to your council for this at a cost of £6 (which is fixed by central government). However it may be better still to order it online along with other searches from a recognised provider.

ii) Additional Local searches
These are responses from your local council to standard questions (set out in the Law Society form CON29) that relate to all kinds of things in your local area, such as planning applications that may be relevant, whether the area is a flood plain or if there are increased risks of Radon gas in the area. It is technically possible for an individual to arrange for a 'Personal Search' whereby they pay Ł11 to go and inspect the local council records to compile the information themselves. This option is generally not recommended as it requires a lot of specialist knowledge about what to look for and council staff are unlikely to be willing to help anyone with queries from personal searchers (as they have no legal obligation to do so). To obtain the answers off your council requires a CON29 form to be submitted along with a fee which can range from around Ł100 to Ł150 depending upon councils. Once again this is usually going to be cheaper if you use an online search agency as they are able to get discounts.

iii) Drainage and Water searches
Responses from local water authorities to standard questions (contained in form CON29DW) relating to the water supply to the house and drainage from it. The typical cost of this search is around Ł40-Ł50 depending on which water authority.

Authorised (optional) Documents Depending on the results of the Additional Local searches there may be a number of other searches that any potential purchaser will want to see, this includes mining searches and environmental searches. You are allowed to include these searches in your information pack (at further cost to yourself), however any of these searches provided by the vendor are likely to not be trusted by conveyancers acting on behalf of potential purchasers, who will simply commission their own duplicate searches.