I thought it would be useful as founder and Chair of the HBSG to offer reassurance on few points. Firstly, promoting commercial interest is not allowed at all! One of the other main objectives of the HBSG is that everything we do is done in order to improve home buying and selling for consumers, and having been around when HIPs were introduced, the BAPSI is nothing like it. It is a set of comprehensive questions that a buyer or their lender/agent/legal company/surveyor is likely to need to know before making an offer/up to exchange. These questions were all secured and approved by our steering group, which consists of many of the legal bodies and regulators. One of the biggest sectors represented on the wider HBSG are practising property lawyers, from law firms of all different shapes and sizes. The HBSG is, as much as possible self-funded, we only have one admin person paid £2.5k to organise meetings/manage emails etc. I have worked for free as have many others over the last 5 years. We are always open to receiving new ideas, suggestions or new people that want to get involved and I am always more than happy to discuss our objectives with anyone on a one-to-one basis, or if you prefer in a group chat. Please visit https://homebuyingandsellinggroup.co.uk/ where you can see the BASPI and see who is involved and the work we do.
You can speed up and/or automate processes but you can't necessarily speed up or predict the human behaviour aspects of a transaction. I used to warn clients that divorcing parties on the other side of a sale or purchase tended to mean a high likelihood of delay - and sometimes failure of the transaction - because one of the parties had changed their mind or a disagreement had to be resolved before they could proceed further.
The comments below are beyond uninformed. The professionals behind this (myself included ) have decades of experience in the respective professions, conveyancing, agency, surveying, mortgage, broking etc. The proposition is not HIPs by another name (and of course we have addressed why HIPs failed) nor is it being peddled by any vested interests.
Upfront information is coming via the new Material Information changes that are part way there now. Conveyancers can either embrace those changes or get left behind.
If you want to make informed comments you can watch the discussion by visiting the National Conveyancing Week website.
Thank goodness not all conveyancers are so judgemental, and to be honest mean spirited, when all that is trying to be done is improve the process for the client/consumer.
How many were asked "would you be willing to pay an nonrefundable £300 for something that may save time?".
How many conveyancers have experienced an issue securing payment from clients after it falls through? Or asked if they offer a no move no fee policy?
One way to speed up the process would be to stop trying to speed up the process. Chasing us takes time out of the day which could be used effectively. Things take time, and I never understand the rush.
I share the view below that the percentage of fall throughs does not reflect the percentage of my matters that have fallen through during each of the last 41 years.
And yes buyers pull out because they realise this is not the property for them after all. Sellers pull out because they find that they cannot find a property to buy that ticks all the boxes
I remember HIPS and they could have been a good thing. However they were watered down as any physical property inspection was taken out of the equation. Also the HIPS were generally instructed by estate agents to companies they had a relationship with who compiled sometimes completely wrong information and did not understand the information. More often than not you ended up with an incomplete pack that nobody with any legal knowledge or training had put together. They were in the main worthless.
As another poster has alluded should upfront information catch on we will be left with the same old vested interests scrambling around for business and producing information they do not understand and which has not been properly reviewed.
For it to work they have to be compiled by proper law firms by which I mean not those who only get the work because they pay a referral fee and who then pile paralegals high. That is not a solution. It is simply dressing the same problem up in different clothes. Law firms should be instructed by sellers with no input from estate agents. That is what would best protect the interests of clients and should result in any potential issues with the paperwork being spotted as part of the process. Sadly that is not what we will end up with.
Conveyancing is a pretty murky world these days. What might be legal may not necessarily be right.
I'm in broad agreement with the comments below. During the entire period when HIPS were compulsory I did not have a single client who had looked at them prior to instructing me - the reasoning presumably being that was what they were paying me to do. And I see the oft-peddled statistic of one in three matters falling through being regurgitated - this is not a ratio that bears any resemblance to my experience undertaking conveyancing for over 30 years (which was more like 1 in 10 falling through, almost always because of reasons which "upfront information" would have made no difference to).
Once again those who have no day-to-day involvement with Conveyancing are attempting to call the shots. Why not look at why there are so many abortives? I can almost guarantee that in most of the cases that have become abortive, the BASPI would not assist. This is part of the thinking that Conveyancing can just be fixed by a process, or technology - it can't. People change their minds for a whole host of reasons which the Hips, Baspi or any other form devised by those determined to make a living out of Conveyancing whilst not actually employed in it, devise. Why can't these people just leave us be?
As someone involved with conveyancing work for over thirty years, my experience was that Home Information Packs were rarely useful. They were often badly put together, by unqualified people and the information included was usually partial and incomplete, or out of date. HIPs seemed to be about capturing market share.
There are many reasons for the increasing delays in conveyancing. These include changes in the housing market, slower responses from managing agents, ESW1 requirements, the more complex identity and money laundering checks, less willingness to take a view over flaws in leases , the freehold rentcharge debacle, working from home, less experienced staff in law firms, delays at the Land Registry and with local authorities, changed attitudes on escalating ground rents , delays in obtaining leases extensions , overcomplicated schemes such as Help to Buy, and a generally more cautious approach to conveyancing.
All these issues require their own solution.
I was glad when HIPs were no longer required.
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