There has been yet another twist in the long-running saga of Home Information Packs (Hips), with the government’s announcement that – surprise, surprise – their full introduction is to be delayed yet again. Since December, all sellers have had to order a pack (which gives detailed information on their house, including a full energy report) before putting their property on the market; but, strangely, they are not actually required to produce the thing.

That was due to change at the end of this month – but now, apparently because of the woes of the property market, their introduction has been postponed until the end of the year. It sounds like nothing so much as the death rattle of an expiring beast.

The people who should be least surprised are the 2,000 or so home inspectors, a bunch of (formerly) cheery types who forked out thousands of pounds and went on an arduous training course only to find that their qualification is little more than useless.

I know this because I have a great friend who is – or, rather, was – one. Nick Cowley, a genial chap from Berkhamsted, is now looking at a £15,000shaped hole in his wallet, and two years wasted on his dismal quest to become a home inspector.

It all looked so promising. At the age of 40, Cowley felt like a career change; he’d been in the wine trade, then run a decorating business, but, two years ago, he heard that training courses were being offered for those willing to work on Hips, which were shortly to be mandatory with each house sale. The training was not dissimilar to that which a surveyor undergoes, only without the valuation element.

Cowley felt rather excited about the prospect of becoming a home inspector. “I love architecture and working on houses,” he says. “Going to a house and inspecting the whole thing properly is what I wanted to do.” Indeed, he wanted to do it so much, he sank £14,000 into a 13-month training course that culminated in an exam and 10 house inspections. So did everyone else on his course.

“Sixty of us started the course, and there were similar courses all over the place,” he goes on. All of them with budding new home inspectors, bright of eye and bushy of tail.

Then came the first problem. Halfway through the course, the government announced that the Home Condition Report part of the Hip would not be compulsory. About half the people on Cowley’s course promptly left and went back to their old job. Nevertheless, the government made reassuring noises, saying that there would still be plenty of work going because all these properties would need energy certificates. Cowley stuck with it.

Just as he qualified, however, another hurdle appeared: the government postponed the introduction of Hips following opposition from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (whose jobs, let’s remember, the home inspectors closely shadowed).

Eventually, last September, the legislation came in: Hips were officially launched, and my mate got a job as the regional manager for the south of England for a company called Christopher Rodgers (Home & Energy). “Everything seemed to be going well,” he recalls. “I had a salary and was looking to do at least 99 inspections a month.”

At which point, enter the energy assessor, a new breed with just two weeks’ training, who could churn out energy certificates. Rather as VHS saw off the classy Betamax, the energy assessors knocked spots off the now overqualified home inspectors. Why? Moolah, basically. Whereas the home inspectors were charging £90 plus Vat for their certificates, the lowly energy chaps were ready to do them for a tenner.

“And, of course, that combined with the housing market going south,” Cowley recalls. “It was a triple whammy – prices falling, a dearth of sales and loads of energy inspectors.”

As fewer and fewer houses came on the market, and more and more people went for the cheaper option of the energy inspector, the future of the home inspector looked about as promising as that of the dodo.

“Nowadays, there is no money in it at all,” Cowley laments. “And there are about 10,000 domestic energy assessors around the country. We were completely shafted.” He was down to doing about four houses a month, before the regional manager for England (north) rang up and told him the inevitable news.

Understandably, Cowley is less than impressed with the government’s handling of the issue. “I feel turned over,” he says. “The whole thing was going to happen, it was in the Housing Act, then all of a sudden the Home Condition Report, which is precisely the thing I had trained for, went out of the window.”

So, why does he think the home inspector was doomed? Vested interests, he says: “We would have put a lot of surveyors and estate agents out of business.”

What now? Could he train to become a surveyor? Only after a year of unpaid work. Instead, he has decided to go back into the wine trade and try to put his brief existence as a home inspector far behind him.

“It has cost me a fortune and has taken me nowhere,” Cowley concludes. “My qualification will lapse after a while. I’m never retraining for anything again. The only people who have benefited are those who run the official training schemes. And, do you know, they are still out there on the internet, offering courses.”

He’s right. They are.

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