The current Government is intent on blowing an asset bubble to get us back to 2007 . Oh, happy days. A key part of that is to re-pump the housing market. This will help the now Government owned banks with their mortgage portfolios and keep the all important Daily Mail onside.However, as ever, Governments are not very good at joined up working and here is a typical modern example. The Daily Mail et al were very upset at the introduction of Home Information Packs; all set to bring added administrative burden, a lack of inspectors, that sort of thing.
However, there are people queuing up to be HIPS inspectors in our new wonderful spare capacity economy. Where there is a block however is in local Government. Due to cuts backs C@W understands that 3 big London boroughs, Woolwich, Croydon and Greenwich are processing as few as 2 HIP requests per day. Indeed, they have been cutting back on Property Searches recently to save money.
Given that you can't legally sell your house without a HIP this is going to cause a great blockage in the system. At the moment volumes in the housing market our very low so the impact is not yet noticeable in the mainstream; it will be though as bubble keeps getting blown.
Of course, a sensible Government may just scrap HIPS altogether.....
