In addition, it is widely believed that homeowners are better placed to carry the cost of searches and surveys than first-time buyers are, leaving the latter to fully concentrate on finding their deposit.
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The CIH, the body representing housing professionals, believes that HIPs are an important tool to highlight defects hidden within a property, especially as far as the energy efficiency rating goes giving buyers a clear guide to what exactly they are purchasing.
Deputy chief executive of the CIH, Sarah Webb, said: We support any measures that make the costs and risks of home ownership more bearable. Apart from the up-front costs of surveys and searches that are difficult for first-time buyers to shoulder, there is a real need for homebuyers to know exactly what they are signing up to.
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The energy performance certificates that form part of a HIP are crucial to making sellers think more about the effective insulation and general upkeep of their property, which in turn will help meet climate change targets if you were buying a fridge you would expect to know its energy rating, so you should with a house
We know that 3.5 million homes in the private sector fail the decent homes standard on the thermal comfort criterion thats 20 per cent of the housing stock and if HIPs help to address this huge problem, then we support them.
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