This is just another layer of useless bureucracy desined by this feckless and incompetant government which benefits nothing but a cabel of sponging 'energy investigators'. And all for what purpose - for a report that no-one reads or cares about. How typical!!

alastair.adams1@btinternet.com, Worcester Park, Surrey

It is not the cost of the HIP, even though a complete waste of money, it is the utter uselessness of a pack that no-one, except the providers, is interested in.

There is no evidence whatsoever that HIP's do either of it's projected aims.

Baggins, Torquay, UK

It never fails to amaze me how so many people write and speak so much rubbish about something they really know so little about. Lets get the facts right, the only NEW thing with hips is the Energy Performance Certificate, and that comes from an EU directive to be implemented by 01.01.2009. All of the rest of a hip ie, Land Registry Title and Plan, Sale Statement, Local Search and Land Charges and the Drainage & Water Search have always been part of property purchasing. Just ask your solicitor or conveyancer! They require this information to protect the purchasers interests. The only difference is that now the info is up front and paid by the vendor instead of the purchaser. I suppose this could be better that having to wait forever after having made an offer subject to.... One other point Guy from London, I personally know a couple of DEAs and they do not charge hundreds of pounds for an EPC far from it, average charges are UNDER £100 and even then business is hard to come by.

Peter, Bognor Regis, UK

Quite how the government can consider proceeding with a policy virtually every property professional in the land has ridiculed, is beyond me. On August 1st 4 bedroom and above were hit, with 3 bedroom homes incorporated on 10th September. The experience of this partial implementation had already proved HIPs to be an ineffective, unnecessary and expensive intrusion into the market and resulted in a 35% reduction in properties coming on to agents' lists.
Vendors are very unhappy to pay £350 - £700 for HIP reports, listing personal information on them and their homes and incorporating the Energy Performance Certificate, especially when they learn what is happening to the reports once prepared - nothing. Prospective purchasers have no interest in reading them, and their solicitors are asking that they should not be sent to them, and Lenders want nothing to do with them at all.Given all this, how can government possibly carry on regardless? Carry On is about right. Pinewood next?

Trevor Kent PPNAEA, Gerrards Cross, Bucks, England

I work for a firm of surveyoprs and estate agents. No my knowledge, not a single prospective purchaser has asked to see a HIP. They appear to have done nothing to improve the conveyancing process for large properties. The idea that any vendor would spend hundreds or thousands of pounds on their property in order to improve their energy efficiency or CO2 ratings is frankly ludicrous. The only people to benefit from them is the people who charge hundreds of pounds to provide them.

Guy, London,

I work as a professional broker in the mortgage market as an independent and the politicians claim that HIPS will speed up the buying process is utterly misfounded on a total lack of knowledge.
The key thing that made transactions complete faster was the introduction of title insurance and also the use of Automatic Valuation Models both of which were lender initiatives not government.
Lenders across the market have clamped down on discretionary underwriting, and first time buyers I obtained mortgages for in the summer would not be able to get it now.
If they really want to help FTB markets then they must address stamp duty once and for all.
All the HIPS serve is to force the seller to employ a self employed inspector that the government demand a copy of all data contained within the report he carries out and that you pay for it so they can create an even bigger data base.
The banks have the final decision on lending criteria as it's their money and shareholders.

David, Dunstable, Bedfordshire

So what was so wrong with the old way of doing things?
Why change things that work so well........Just another way of making money for nothing

Dave , Peterborough,

Why now? Could it be because of the data disaster happening somewhere else distracting us?

They know these Hips are unpopular, don't they?

Spin is alive and well.

Freedom and democracy are under attack from this lot like never before. We need to get rid of them and the sooner, the better.

John, London, UK

Selling a flat for 200k will typically cost the seller about 3 to 5k in estate agent fees. Legal costs will take this to around the 5 to 6k mark. It is nonsense to suggest that an extra 350 per sale is going to grind the market to a halt. Estate agents have had quite a few golden years of a booming market when they have collected their fees for doing next to nothing. Now that the bad times are here they'll just have to fork out money up front to pay for HIPs. Any sensible business person knows that boom times don't last forever and that money should be put aside for the downtimes. Sensible agents will have done this - or has all the surplus gone on Mercs, BMWs etc?

George, East Sussex, UK