The mountain of paperwork involved in selling a home will grow taller this year. From June 1 — a date now just 97 working days away — anyone putting a property on the market must provide a home information pack (HIP).

After an embarrassing government climbdown, the home condition report is no longer an obligatory part of this controversial dossier. But an energy performance certificate (EPC) will be required. This will score a property’s use of fossil fuels on a scale from A to G: an A grade indicates a home which is the epitome of sustainability; a G grade means it is an environmental menace.

The new awareness of the necessity to be green and of higher utility bills makes the EPC a very useful document for the househunter. But there is speculation that the dawn of a more eco-conscious Britain may be delayed, since there may not be enough trained energy inspectors by June 1.

This would be history repeating itself in the most shamemaking way for the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), which had to make home condition reports voluntary because of . . . a lack of inspectors. Sources in the know point out that 10,000 energy assessors, authorised by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, would be qualified to compile EPCs. But the DCLG apparently wants them to retrain.

The DCLG this week made it clear that it still expected to have enough energy inspectors by the deadline. Maybe it is hoping that the predicted effect of HIPs on the housing market will ease the problem in the early days of the scheme. An HIP is likely to cost about £600 to £1,000 for a larger property, according to The Partnership, a specialist HIP firm. As a result, some estate agents are urging potential clients to sell now rather than face this extra expense. The result could be more homes for sale before June 1, followed by a slowdown in supply, although that may be only a short-term effect.

We should not underestimate government resolve to make HIPs happen. But energy inspectors may be just one of the department’s problems. The Chancellor is said to take a gloomy view of HIPs, fearing that the decrease in homes for sale could be long term rather than temporary, with consequences for such things as labour mobility. Gordon Brown hopes to move house himself this year to No 10 and wants everything in the economic garden to be lovely at that time.

VOTE FOR GORDON

Most housing pundits have now pronounced on the prospects for 2007. Unlike the Chancellor, hardly anyone thinks that HIPs will permanently dry up the supply of homes for sale. But in some spots there is already a shortage. This means buyers must become nuisance callers, contacting estate agents every day to see if anything new is available, as we explain on page 4.

Most gurus predict growth of 3.5 to 7 per cent, with buyers deterred by rising interest rates. Halifax’s December figures suggested prices were already sliding, but there was a general reluctance to read too much into one set of statistics. The Central London boom continues unabated; the capital’s prime postcodes are now a separate state where City boys snap up homes with seven and eight-figure prices in the conviction that long-term capital growth is assured.

Although prices are likely to cool outside the metropolis, first-time buyers will still struggle. Last year more than half received help from their parents; but Fionnuala Earley, Nationwide’s economist, points out that the level of deposits now required will make it more difficult for the Bank of Mum and Dad to pay out enough cash. David Stubbs, chief economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, says that couples now need “nearly 82 per cent of joint take-home income to fund the upfront buying costs of a typical home”.

One thing is sure this year: a campaign to urge the Chancellor to raise the starting threshold for stamp duty. The wish to appeal to younger voters may make Gordon Brown more willing to listen in 2007.

DOMESTIC FABULOSITY

My passion for pictures of extraordinary American homes for sale is being assuaged this week by the $20 million New Jersey ten-bedroom, ten-car garage pad of Russell Simmons, a hiphop millionaire, and his wife, Kimora Lee Simmons, a fashion designer.

The soon-to-be ex-Mrs Simmons (the couple are selling because they are divorcing) is the author of Fabulosity: What It Is and How To Get It. The ultimate expression of this may be the house’s Fifties-style cinema, complete with a wax model ticket-taker. Yet the house has remained unsold for months: see what you think by visiting Kimora’s own blog (www.drinkthis.typepad.com, and type ‘saddle river’ in the search box) .

anne.ashworth@thetimes.co.uk

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