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The Shadow Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, repeated statements to abolish the Home Information Pack has left the HIP industry’s future in doubt.

 It has also planted a time bomb that could ignite early in the New Year bringing with it misery for estate agents, other property professionals and the home seller and buyer.

If the Conservative Party should gain power at the next general election, Mr Shapps has made it increasingly clear that his first task will be to scrap the current HIP.

With the HIP’s future uncertain and Mr Shapps refusing to commit to what will replace it, many vendors will at the beginning of next year facing a dilemma as to of whether to sell or wait until after the election before going to market.

Home Information Pack provider Simply HIP is set to upgrade all its HIPs in favour of the new, improved Exchange-Ready Pack.

The firm said that it was upgrading all new HIP orders to Exchange-Ready Packs at no extra cost to reflect consumer and 
industry focus on the importance of speed and certainty when it came to improving the home-buying and selling process.

Eight out of 10 homebuyers think that broadband speeds should be listed by estate agents, a survey has found.

Three-quarters of people would think twice about buying or renting a property with poor broadband coverage.

Controversial Home Information Packs (HIPs) will be consigned to "history" by the Conservatives if they win next year's General Election.

HIPs were symbolic of the "pointless red tape" Labour had introduced in housing, Shadow housing spokesman Grant Shapps told the party's conference in Manchester.

Shapps said the Tories were the "progressive" party on housing issues and that Gordon Brown would be "the first to benefit" from their abolition "when his moving van pulls up outside Number 10".

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The majority of Home Information Pack consumers are satisfied with the delivery of their HIP, according to research out today.

Further findings also appear to demonstrate the ease with which they were completed and support for the provision of up front information in the home buying process.

The Ipsos MORI survey, commissioned by the Association of Home Information Pack Providers (AHIPP), reveals the following:

Home Information Packs (HIPs) from estate agents can cost more than 50% more than those bought directly from a specialist, according to research from Which? Money.

All homes put up for sale in England and Wales require a HIP, but the consumer champion has found a gulf between the cheapest and most expensive HIPs on the market, which could see people paying up to almost £300 over the odds.

Home Information Packs supplier Hips.co.uk has defended the value of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs).

This follows claims by the National Landlords Association (NLA) that EPCs were being ignored by tenants and, as a result, landlords were questioning the need for the reports.

Two bodies covering the residential property sector in respect of consumer redress and industry Codes of Practice are working together.

The Property Codes Compliance Board (PCCB) has begun the transition to direct consumer enquiries to The Property Ombudsman (TPO) and later, in mid-September, will also be moving its consumer redress function to create a simplified redress system for consumers across the whole sector.

A new body has been formed to represent the property information providing industry.

The Federation of Property Information Providers (FPIP) brings together the Association of Home Information Pack Providers (AHIPP) and the Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) under one umbrella, recognising the increasing prominence of the role of these industries in serving consumers.

Major UK developer Countryside Properties has joined with Property IT Company Hip2go to produce a system for the "in house" production of Home Information Packs (HIPs) with the added benefit of "ready to exchange" status.

Built specifically for the requirements of the new-build homes industry, this is believed to be the first system of its kind.