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Questions & Answers
If you can’t find
an answer, please don’t hesitate to email us or call us
on 0161 613 6723
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1. How do I pay for a HIP?
We accept payment through our website at www.manchesterhip.co.uk, by
PayPal or by cheque.
To pay through the website (our preferred method as it speeds up the
whole process) go to our homepage, and you’ll see a blue ‘buy now’
button and a drop-down menu with two options. Choose the option you
require from the drop –down menu, then click the ‘buy now’ button.
This will take you to Google Checkout, a secure payment site which
accepts a range of debit and credit cards. Please follow the
on-screen options to fill in your details and make the payment.
Once we have received payment, we begin commissioning the HIP
straight away. We also immediately email out to you a confirmation
of commissioning email – this is the proof you need that you’ve
commissioned your HIP with us and can now legally begin to market
your property.
To pay by please make cheques payable to ManchesterHIP and post to 4
Lings Walk, Peel Hall, Manchester M22 5FX.
We can also accept Pay Pal payments with a £5 surcharge. To pay by
Pay Pal, please let us know and we’ll email out a payment request to
you for the full amount. You then follow the instructions within
this email to make the payment.
2. How much does a HIP cost?
HIPs for Freehold properties cost £249 including VAT.
If your property is leasehold the cost is £294 including VAT.
If your property is not registered with the Land Registry, add £50.
3. Does the price include VAT?
All prices include VAT.
4. Does the HIP include everything I need?
Our HIPs contain all necessary legal documents to begin marketing
your property- including:
• Index
• Sales Statement
• Energy Performance Certificate – using only Accredited, insured
and CRB checked Domestic Energy Assessors.
• Official Office copies of the Title Register & Plan – to show the
property’s location and ownership
• Local Authority Search – insurance-backed with Search Code
approved Search companies
• Drainage & Water Search – performed by your local utility company
• Leasehold HIPs contain a copy of the Lease and usually further
Leasehold Register & Plan, all sourced from the Land Registry.
5. What is the Energy Performance Certificate?
The EPC is where a Domestic Energy Assessor will visit your home and
conduct a survey of the energy efficiency of your home. It usually
takes around 45 mins to carry out the survey after which the DEA
will input the information into their software and issue the Energy
Performance Certificate. This is then included in your HIP.
ManchesterHIP use local independent DEAs who will contact you
directly to arrange a mutually convenient appointment time.
6. Are your HIPs compliant?
All our HIPs are HIP Code approved and contain documents sourced from either Official Bodies (eg. HM Land Registry) or compliant documents (eg. Search Code approved searches):
• Energy Performance Certificate – using only Accredited, insured
and CRB checked Domestic Energy
Assessors.
• HM Land Registry Official Office copies of the Title Register &
Plan – to show the property’s location and
ownership
• Local Authority Search – insurance-backed with Search Code
approved Search companies
• Drainage & Water Search – performed by your local utility company
• Leasehold HIPs contain a copy of the Lease and usually further
Leasehold Register & Plan, all sourced from
the Land Registry.
We are members of the HIP Code compliance scheme. We surpass their requirements and our focus is on providing customer satisfaction and quality HIPs.
7. When can I begin Marketing my property?
As soon as you commission ManchesterHIP to produce your HIP, we’ll
send you a confirmation email, at which point you can legally start
marketing your property.
8. What do I need for my Estate Agent?
Once you place the order, we’ll email you through confirmation that
you’ve commissioned your HIP with ManchesterHIP. This is all the
proof you or your Estate Agent will need to legally begin to market
your property.
9. Can I get a reference number – my Estate Agent is asking for one?
Some Estate Agent’s internal computer systems or case management
systems require a reference number. It’s nothing official (although
they may sound like it is). We’ll give you a reference number if you
need one – although our reference is simply ‘ManchesterHIP’ followed
by the first line of your address. For example,
ManchesterHIP10Downingstreet. So you can make your own up if you
wish to do so and we’ll all know what you’re talking about!
10. How long does the process take?
Typically, the HIP takes around 10 working days to complete on
average – some are quicker (our record is 2 days!) but some can take
longer. The slowest elements are the Searches – we have to rely on
Local Authorities and utility companies to provide these and if
there’s a problem with either of these organisations taking longer
than they really should, this will delay the time taken to deliver
your HIP. All HIP companies have to rely on these two bodies to
provide your searches so none of us can guarantee a turnaround time
as these factors are realistically out of our control. However,
where there is likely to be much delay, we’ll do our best to keep
you informed (and pester the life out of whoever’s holding us up!)
11. Is my property Freehold or Leasehold?
If you own the property outright and don’t pay any ground rent, the
likelihood is that your property is freehold. If you pay ground
rent, are in a flat or own a property within a larger building,
you’re probably in a leasehold property. Leasehold HIPs cost a
little more because we have to recover more documentation. If you’re
unsure if your property is leasehold, you can always order your
Freehold HIP and if we find out it’s a leasehold property, we’ll ask
for the extra payment at that time. Or you can go to
www.landregisteronline.gov.uk/lro/servlet/TitleSearchServlet
and enter your property details and postcode and it’ll tell you if
you’re freehold or not!
12. How do I get an order confirmation?
As soon as you place an order with us through Google Checkout, we’ll
email you back with a confirmation email. This proves you’ve
commissioned a HIP (which you need to do to begin marketing your
property). It also contains our Terms & Conditions. If you place an
order by cheque, once we receive the cheque we’ll send through our
confirmation email. All our communications will be primarily through
email.
13. What happens after I place an order?
As soon as you place an order, we get notification from the
respective payment system (Google checkout or Pay Pal for example)
that an order has been placed. We’ll then email you back with a
confirmation of commissioning email (above).
After that, we commission all the searches and get the relevant
documents from the Land Registry. We’ll also commission a local
Domestic Energy Assessor to contact you directly on the telephone
number you’ve specified in your order to arrange a mutually
convenient inspection time. This is the only element which you
hopefully will need to get involved with. The inspection typically
takes around 30-40 minutes and the resultant Energy Performance
Certificate will be included in the HIP. After that, and on average
around 10 working days later, we should have received and compiled
all the relevant documents and we’ll produce the finished HIP. This
will then be emailed through as an attachment to your nominated
email address (the one you specified within Google Checkout or
emailed through separately) and will be uploaded to our website for
simple distribution. Full instructions will be included within the
email to which the HIP is attached.
14. How will my HIP be delivered?
Please also see section above. Your HIP will be delivered as an
electronic .pdf file. PDF files are a common, free file format which
is universally recognisable and readable. The vast majority of HIPs
are stored and distributed in this way. As well as emailing it to
you, we’ll place it on our website and give you a password to use
which will give you access to your HIP. Full instructions to read
pdf files and to access your HIP will be given when we email out the
HIP.
15. Why do I need a HIP?
It is now a legal requirement to produce a Home Information Pack
(HIP) when you market your home of flat for sale in England & Wales.
The HIP contains official documents which are required during the
sale of a property and are designed to ease and speed the
conveyancing process as well as provide buyers with information
about the legal ownership and other information relating to the
property they’re interested in. Please see the official Government
website at www.homeinformationpacks.gov.uk.
16. Who doesn’t need a HIP?
If you won’t be marketing your property during the sale (for example
selling to a friend or family member) you won’t require a HIP.
17. Can I have a hard copy?
To save trees, save money and speed up the process, we keep
everything electronic. If you require a hard copy of the HIP, you
can of course print out the pdf HIP we will be sending you but we
don’t print out a HIP and provide you with a copy. Your estate agent
should be able to produce a hard copy on your behalf.
18. How come you’re cheaper than everyone else?
You should really be asking why is everyone else more expensive! The
easy answer is that we take a very modest margin from each HIP we
produce and pass on the savings to our customers. We’re not greedy.
It’s that simple!
19. Will someone need access to my home?
Yes, our Domestic Energy Assessor will be contacting you with a view
to visiting your property and conducting the Energy Assessment. This
will take around 30-40 for most properties and will culminate in the
production of an Energy Performance Certificate. The EPC will rate
your property in terms of energy efficiency and carbon footprint and
rate it from A (unbelievably good!) to G (pretty poor). The typical
property in the UK rates around D-E so don’t expect too much from
your grading!
20. What does an EPC entail?
A Domestic Energy Assessor will visit your home and has to inspect
all your heating appliances and anything that contributes to the
insulation of your property. That means they’ll have to look in each
room, look in the loft (but not usually enter the loft space) and
make notes of anything that will help heat or insulate your home. An
inspection can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. After the
inspection, the assessor will input the data they’ve recovered into
some official software and an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)
will be created which grades your house from A to G in terms of
energy efficiency and Carbon produced. A typical UK property has a
rating of D-E so don’t be expecting too much!
21. Do you cover all the UK?
Of course, only properties in England and Wales currently require a
Home Information Pack (although Scotland is soon to introduce
something similar) – but yes, we cover all areas which require a
HIP. We may charge a small surcharge for properties in the deepest,
darkest parts of Wales as our Energy Assessors have to travel
further to get to many properties. Most parts of Wales are covered
at the usual rates but we’ll let you know if there will be any extra
charge during the course of the HIP. All the rest of England and
Wales are at our standard, advertised rate.
22. Are there any hidden extras I should know about?
No. Our fee covers all mandatory documents detailed in our Terms and
Conditions and in this FAQ - and our HIPs contain all the necessary
documents you legally need to provide to market your house. The
price you see is the price you pay. The only times there may be
further payments required is if you’ve either bought the wrong HIP
or there are other unforeseeable changes needed to be made to your
HIP pack:
• There may be the occasional surcharge on properties in the remoter
parts of Wales (see above).
• If you’ve mis-bought a HIP – for example you paid for a Freehold
HIP (£249) when In fact your property is Leasehold (£294). In that
case we’ll only ask for the difference (£45).
• If we find out your property is not registered at the Land
Registry – in which case we charge £50 to locate and compile the
documents required to prove you own the title.
• If for any other reason you have caused a delay in the creation of
the HIP or caused more work to be done through inaccurate
information or inaction- please see our Terms and Conditions
document available from our homepage.
23. Price Beater
ManchesterHIP will beat any
quote by £1.
You need to provide us with evidence that you’ve received the quote
– either email through an email quote or screen grab of the quote
and we’ll beat it by £1. |
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