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Thu, 20 November 2008 |
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Conveyancing News: Four Bedrooms Become Three to Avoid HIPs |
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Article Published: 29-May-2007 The Governments postponement of the Home Information Pack scheme, for all homes except those with four bedrooms or more, could lead to a further shortage of inspectors and to sellers bending the rules, warned Estate Agents. Estate Agents have said that they may recommend to sellers of four bedroom properties that they market their homes as three bedrooms with a study, to avoid paying for the costly home pack and to save time hunting down an elusive home inspector. Hugh Grover, of a London based estate agents, said, "The whole thing is a fiasco. The obvious response is to designate one bedroom as a reception room. Or people could just call them 'rooms' and leave it to the buyer how it's used." This approach is perfectly legal too and could incur no comeback under the Property Misdescriptions Act, as under planning law it is a matter of whether the rooms are habitable, not whether or not they are bedrooms. Problems would only occur if four bedroomed homes were marketed as five bedrooms. David Marsden, head of the property department at Matthew Arnold and Baldwin, said, "There is no official definition of a bedroom. We will start seeing three-bedroom houses advertised with a dining room on the first floor and an upstairs lounge - and 'oh dear, we just seem to be storing a bed in there'. Some poor civil servant will be in charge of redrawing the regulations on what constitutes a four-bedroom house, but it may be a long while before we know." Source: Conveyancing-0800.co.uk |
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