Homeowners to give HIPs the slip?

Research by Abbey Mortgages has found that millions of homeowners plan to exploit a loophole to avoid purchasing the Home Information Packs (HIPs) that are now mandatory for anyone selling a home with four bedrooms or more from September 10th.

In order to avoid shelling out for a HIP, 4.5 million homeowners with four bedrooms said they would be prepared to market their home as a three bedroom home - and describe their fourth bedroom as something else.

The most popular way to remarket a fourth bedroom, according to 82%, is as a study. Indeed, the word 'study' could well become a code-name for a fourth bedroom on a property's particulars.

Other names that people would use to describe their extra bedroom include: playroom (21%), games room (15%), walk in wardrobe (12%), TV room (6%), library (4%) and computer room (3%).

Despite this, the mortgage bank is warning homeowners against marketing their property as having a reduced number of bedrooms. Doing so may make your home appear overpriced and damage your chances of selling, which outweighs the relatively low cost of HIPs.

Furthermore, with 89% of Britons now using the Internet to search for properties, and 73% using the number of bedrooms as a way of filtering out irrelevant properties from a search, you may also run the risk of being missed by potential buyers.

21 August 2007 © Moneyextra.com

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