Now Labour makes it even HARDER to sell your home (just as buyers finally return to the market)

Becky Barrow
UK Daily Mail
Tuesday, Dec 09, 2008

In a move which triggered a furious backlash, Ministers have tightened the rules on the widely-condemned Home Information Packs.

They will now have to be available on the very first day a house goes on sale, rather than 28 days later.

And they have been made even more complicated with the addition of a six-page questionnaire.
Experts described the rule changes to the £300 packs as 'absolutely farcical' and 'utterly bonkers'.

The shock announcement by Housing Minister Margaret Beckett was said to show 'a complete lack of understanding' of the paralysed property market.

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Experts said homeowners already desperate to sell, such as young couples starting a family who need a bigger home, will be horrified that it could become even more difficult.

Those waiting for a better time to put property on the market could be further deterred.

By a bleak coincidence, the bad news on HIPs came as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors offered a glimmer of hope for the housing market. RICS said continuing price falls had finally sparked a small increase in expressions of interest from potential buyers - the first for two years.

But the decision to tighten the HIPs rules enraged the industry. Experts said it ran completely counter to other policies such as pumping billions of taxpayers' money into the banking system, Gordon Brown's mortgage bailout pledge and stamp duty holiday schemes.

Ministers claim research on 16,000 transactions showed they were completed up to to six days earlier when a HIP was available.

Full article here