Do Your Own HIP

When compiling a HIP, and having taken the decision not to use the services of an industry professional, you will need to collate the following documents.

• Home Information Pack Index
• Energy Performance Certificate
• Sale statement
• Standard searches
• Evidence of title

1. Click 'buy searches' and  register if you haven't already
2. Check the box for a HIP order and click next
3. Enter the postocde of the property and click search
4. Select the property from the list
5. Check the map to ensure the location is correct and click to continue
6. Verify the address and click next
7. Print or otherwise make a note of the searches involved in the HIP.  Also note the price of the HIP and the individual components, as you may need this for comparison purposes.
8. Should you wish to store your order, continue with the ordering process. An email will be sent to you containing all the order details and payment options. 
9. Should you wish to view all available searches, perform the above steps, but don't check the HIP box in the second step.

You can order any of these searches through our site, or through a different company.Do Your Own will support you through your HIPs purchase, irrespective of the sources of your documents.  If you do decide to purchase HIPs components from different sources, Do Your Own offers the facility to store and manage those documents online and will help you to compile them into a HIP.
Do Your Own have taken a decision to make information freely available and to keep costs of searches and Home Information Packs not only competative, but as low as possible.  Ordering from Do Your Own supports this iniative and offers you the additional benefit of your documents being automatically placed online without you needing to be bothered by scanning or uploading.

A Step Further

Most of the searches are produced by companies or organisations who maintain the relevant property data.

For example, there is the Drainage and Water Search. To order such a search, you would need to buy the special legal form from a legal stationer, then fill this out with your cheque, and post or hand deliver it to your relevant water company.

You could do this with the Local Authority as well.

In the case of a Local Authority, you could even pay a smaller fee than normal and visit them and for this fee you will be able to access their records and look for the relevant information. Care must me taken with this approach.  Whilst it is perfectly legal, you must ensure that you know what information you are looking for and be sure that the conveyancer acting for any potential buyers will be prepared to accept a HIP containing Local Authority search information prepared by you. It is, however, most probable that the purchaser’s solicitor will reject that part of your HIP.

Before the introduction of HIPs, the buyer was responsible for the Local Authority Search.  As long as the buyer was satisfied with the results, the sale could continue, so it was much easier to do your own Local Authority Search.  Now that the HIP is provided by the seller, and must satisfy both the buyer and any of the buyer's representatives, the task has become more difficult.  Even though you may feel that you can do as good a job, possibly quicker or more in depth than an industry professionals, convincing another solicitor of this may prove difficult

Another alternative is to purchase a Personal Search as an alternative to the official Local Authority search. This might save you some money but the above argument about the purchaser’s solicitor rejecting that part of the HIP may apply again.