HIP + EPC

What is a Home Information Pack and do I have to have one?

Not any more!

HIPS have been scrapped as a legal requirement from midnight 21st May 2010 by the Lib-Con Coalition. A new law will be introduced to permanently abolish the legal requirement to have a HIP prior to marketing a property.

However home sellers will still need to have an Energy Perfomance Certificate - this rates the energy efficiency of a property.

So, what is an Energy Performance Certificate and why do I need one?

The European Union recognised that all member nations were using significant energy resources.  The Union cannot produce sufficient energy itself and therefore has to import supplies.  This is costly, inefficient and potentially dangerous should those supplies not be available.  Therefore, they introduced legislation to identify energy consumption with the further aim of reducing it through greater efficiency.  This affects both residential and commercial property.

In the UK, evidence indicated that almost half of the energy consumption was in the residential sector and therefore as part of the process of providing prospective buyers with information at the outset through the HIP, the government introduced the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). 

The certificate identifies the current usage and recommends the potential savings in the short, medium and long term.  This information allows prospective buyer or tenant to identify the energy costs associated with the property.