Hips to save time and money
May 14, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Mortgages
The introduction of Home Information Packs (Hips) will “revolutionise” the home-buying process by providing “greater certainty” for everyone involved.
That is according to the Association of Home Information Pack Providers (AHIPP) which claims that the new laws on Hips will save time and money for prospective mortgage-holders.
From June 2007, the provision of Hips will be mandatory in the process of selling a home and the AHIPP claims that this will make things easier for everyone, particularly when it comes to duplication of information.
The organisation says that at present, it is possible that a number of prospective buyers will pay for the same information on a property as there is no central source.
When the new laws are introduced, it argues, this will no longer be a problem and buyers will end up saving money.
“Home Information Packs will strip out a lot of the wasted cost and effort involved in the home buying and selling process, particularly in those cases where sellers opt to include the voluntary Home Condition Report (HCR) in their pack,” commented Mike Ockenden, director general of the AHIPP.
In addition, the AHIPP says that Hips will speed up the buying and selling process, offering added security for both parties.
“Providing a Hip at the time of viewing can significantly reduce the time between offer and exchange of contracts, but also minimise the window for gazumping, giving greater certainty for buyers and sellers alike,” added Mr Ockenden.
Critics of Hips argue that sellers will be less likely to put their house on the market as they will have to pay for the packs before doing so.
NI bankers may get interest-free overdrafts
March 8, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Banking
People who do their banking in Northern Ireland (NI) may soon benefit from interest-free overdrafts.
That is after a report released by the Competition Commission which has been looking at ways of increasing competition and lowering charges in the NI personal current account market.
A list of “proposed final remedies” has been published by the commission and one of them is to force banks to give customers interest-free overdrafts.
Some banks in the province have admitted that the charges they impose on some customers are not directly derived from costs and it has also been found that many are being subjected to charges which are not present elsewhere in the UK.
All of this was discovered by the Office of Fair Trading two years ago and now the commission has come up with its remedies.
Among the ideas are calls for the provision of easy-to-understand descriptions of account services, clear explanations about charges and increased amounts of information on statements.
The Competition Commission would also like to see customers being provided with an annual breakdown of charges and interest charged, an annual reminder that they have the right to close or switch their current account and improvements to the switching process.
