Do you HAVE to have a HIP?

[fivecandles]

What happens if you don't have one?

you fall over?

the estate agents arent allowed to market your house without one or it being in the process of being organised - its a legal requirement now for selling your house

You don't have to have one if you sell privately (ie not through an agency). You do have to have an Energy Performance Certificate for any sale.

If you don't have one and you are going through an agent your buyer's solicitors will refuse to do anything until you produce one, because the buyer will not appreciate having to pay for all the searches that should be in the HIP.

And if you get caught your agency will get fined.

We bought our house privately earlier in the summer and the vendor did not have a HIP. Initially we were told by our solicitor that he would need to get a EPC however we then found out that he only needed to get one if we requested one. We didn't see the point (and also were very short of time) so he didn't get one! Hope this helps.

Make sure you shop around. We thought it was a government company, didn't realise there were all different companies who charge all different amounts. We were sucked in and have had to pay the best part of £500 We still haven't sold our property and it's been over nine months so we're having to pay it even though we obviously don't have the money. Luckily they agreed a monthly installment but they initially just took it straight out of our account leaving us extremely over drawn

Sorry Mins but that is not correct - a vendor is supposed to have an EPC for any sale including private ones. You might have chosen to ignore it but the requirement is still law. Landlords are even supposed to produce an EPC when letting a flat/house on a 12 month tenancy now.

We put our flat on the rental market this week and we had to have a EPC, and ours is on a 6month+ let.

Georgimama - was interested to read your message. We didn't choose to ignore the requirement for the EPC - our solicitor did originally say it was a legal requirement but when our vendors solicitor said it was not ours checked it out and eventually agreed although she did say the whole area was really complicated and that we could insist on one but if we chose not to that was fine. We certainly would have insisted on it had we been told it definitely was a legal requirement.