Foxton's Case points to the need for reform on the back of the HIP

It was reported last week that a court has ordered estate agent Foxtons Ltd to pay more than £4,000 in fines and costs for failing to give accurate information about a property for sale. As an advocate of reform to the home buying and selling process based on principle of mandatory delivery of upfront information I found this case of interest.

In the case Magistrates heard that a would-be buyer had been interested in buying a home in Hackney Foxtons, but the estate agent chose not tell the buyer that the £450,000 property was designated not as residential, but as "work/live" - to be used as part-business, part-residential.

This was only discovered later after the buyer instructed a solicitor and incurred £600 of legal fees. The buyer was then faced with either a £20,000 bill for planning covenants to convert the property to solely residential use or pulling out and losing both time and costs.

The buyer chose to withdraw and a complaint was made to Trading Standards in Hackney, who referred the case to Islington Council. The agent was subsequently

issued with a fine of £3667, and ordered to pay £680 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

The buyer here was lucky.

Many others are not and before home information packs were introduced many sellers and buyers lost thousands and thousands of pounds in abortive transactions. This is one fact that Grant Shapps conveniently seems to forget when speaking to the press and the public.

If in this case the property had been advertised by Foxtons as residential, then according to the law a HIP should have been produced and presented to the buyer. It’s not clear whether this happened or not, though if a HIP was available then planning issues may have been uncovered through the personal searches that are contained within the HIP.

The case also highlights the benefit of taking and using the HIP as a basis for improving the home and buying and selling process by requiring the seller to deliver legal information over and above those legal documents already within the HIP, such as for example planning documents. See my earlier article on ‘ready to exchange’ packs.

Had this requirement been in place a case of this type would never have occurred. Perhaps this explains the number of estate agents urging Grant Shapps to follow through with his intention to abolish the HIP.

As always with politics the consumer seems to be low down on the list of priorities and much lower than the estate agent on the Grant Shapps’ list!