From: Nick Salmon [nicksalmon@tinyworld.co.uk]
Sent: 19 March 2007 19:19
Subject: [Maybe spam] PRESS RELEASE FROM SPLINTA - 19th MARCH 2007

Dear Supporters

The following is the text of a press release circulated this evening. As usual, please pass to your media contacts.

Subscribers: An Update will be coming to you later this week.

Regards

Nick


Press release from SPLINTA
19th March 2007

GOVERNMENT ‘GREEN-WASHES’ A WHITE ELEPHANT.

HOME INFORMATION PACKS SET TO UPSET THE PROPERTY MARKET

From June 1st 2007 all residential properties put up for sale will be required by the government to have a £400+ Home Information Pack(HIP) prepared before the marketing can begin. The pack will contain legal documents and an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) grading the property’s energy efficiency. However, properties already on the market before the June 1st deadline can continue to be marketed without a pack until March 2008. 

There is now growing evidence that a rush to beat the HIP is underway and the consequences of this ‘bubble’ could be catastrophic for the housing market the wider economy.

Estate agents have realised that they can use the June 1st date as an opportunity to grab a big slice of new business from home sellers who don’t want to pay for the discredited packs. One major estate agency chain is already advertising with the slogan ‘Lose the HIPs and gain the pounds’, telling would-be sellers that if they put their house on the market by May 31st they won’t need a pack ‘saving you £400 and a lot of hassle’.

Nick Salmon, leader of the anti-pack SPLINTA campaign and commercial director of Harrison Murray Estate Agents says this is just the beginning of an avalanche that could overwhelm the market in coming weeks. "The property industry has been warning the government that HIPs have the capacity to disrupt the market but the advice has fallen on deaf ears. Now it looks like turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Agents are not going to sit back and watch their competitors steal the market from them and I am absolutely certain that we shall soon see a huge number of similar advertisements to beat the HIP date. The result will be a glut of properties put up for sale prior to June 1st followed by a dearth from then on. The property market is extremely fragile and this distortion will have a serious effect on prices. In turn that will affect the wider economy."

Rightmove, the largest property website in the UK has a similar view. Its latest House Price Index (published 19th March) states that, "It is probable that a high proportion of sellers who were thinking of marketing their properties later in 2007 will choose to rush to the market before June in order to avoid incurring the costs of Home Information Packs."

Salmon added, "The only people who want HIPs are the firms that stand to make profits from their introduction. The government says the pack is about ‘better buying, simpler selling’ but they have hijacked HIPs into delivering  Energy Performance Certificates so that anyone criticising the pack can be accused by them of preventing climate change measures. The pack won’t materially or cost-effectively make better buying or simpler selling and the government is simply ‘green-washing’ a white elephant. Housing minister Yvette Cooper should have the courage to stop this nonsense once and for all."

Every major stakeholder group in the property industry, including the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) and the Law Society, have jointly signed a letter to Housing Minister, Yvette Cooper warning that HIPs present: 
* An unquantified but significant threat to the operation of the housing market;
* Potential to cause strategic damage to the wider economy;
* That the implementation [of HIPs] runs counter to the Government’s own policy on better regulation;
* That it is not possible to deliver the Government’s policy objective on June 1st

In a separate statement, the Better Regulation Commission, the government’s own legislation watchdog has slammed Energy Performance Certificates as falling "short of our expectations for good regulation and, in particular, fail our recently recommended tests for better climate change policy." They also noted that the proposals go beyond the requirements of the European Union Directive under which EPC’s are being introduced with, at this stage, "insufficient justification that this is warranted and with too little consideration of a full range of options or of the flexibility available [for EPC delivery]."

The near 2,000 firms of estate agents, solicitors, surveyors, house builders plus numerous members of the public supporting the SPLINTA campaign totally agree with the concerns expressed in the stakeholder letter and the Better Regulation Commission statement and are calling on the Government to shelve the implementation of HIPs on June 1st.

Nick Salmon concluded "The implementation is in chaos. Despite the spin put out by pro-pack groups, the property industry and the public are unprepared and less than three months from the crucial date we are still waiting for the Government to publish final Regulations that will define what is required. This is no way to deal with a measure that could upset the entire property market."

ENDS

Further information and comment: Nick Salmon 07831 805455

Notes to Editors.

1. The Better Regulation Commission is on 020 7276 2143. Website www.brc.gov.uk. The report on EPC's is found in the section 'Spotlight on Better Regulation'.

2. The SPLINTA (SELLERS PACK LAW IS NOT THE ANSWER) campaign is supported by over 1,900 firms of estate agents, surveyors and solicitor/conveyancers with some 4,000 offices in England and Wales.