If you've ever sold your own home, you'll recognise the scenario.

You are about to buy your dream home when the buyer for your property discovers a 'problem' with your place. He reduces his offer by £20,000 and your dream is shattered. The property is back on the market and your search for a buyer starts again.

Stressful. Traumatic. Exhausting.

Words that sum up home buying today.

Home Information Packs, or 'HIPs', are designed to overcome many of the problems with property transactions and reduce the number of failures. HIPs contain all the details about a property including its contents and condition. By making this information available to buyers in advance, last-minute shocks are avoided.

HIPs are in many ways very similar to an MOT for a car.

The Housing Minister, Yvette Cooper, has said: "The current system isn't fair on buyers or sellers. £1million is wasted every day when sales fall through and too many buyers and sellers face real headaches when it turns out they were misled or that problems emerge when it's too late."

From 1st June 2007, if you want to sell your property, you must make a HIP available to your potential buyers. Therefore, if you're thinking about selling your property over the next eighteen months, you should start considering how you are going to collect the necessary information that goes into a HIP.

How it's all going to work

For most people, their local estate agent is the first person they talk to when selling their home. In the future, as well as photographing, valuing and producing a brochure, the agent will deliver a HIP. This will mean obtaining all the legal documents and organising a home inspection.

A home inspector will carry out this inspection and produce a Home Condition Report and Energy Performance Certificate, which assesses the energy efficiency of your home, similar to refrigerators today.

Of course, you don't have to use an agent to produce a HIP. You can instruct a home inspector and solicitor directly, or use a specialist HIP provider.

A HIP provider is the simplest solution, as they have direct access to inspectors and legal services. They will also ensure the work is co-ordinated effectively.

Obviously, if you already have a HIP completed before you talk to an estate agent, this will make you a very attractive vendor. You (or your agent) can choose which potential buyers are allowed to view your HIP before they make an offer.

Your agent or your provider can make the HIP available online, on CDROM, or in printed format (for which the buyer will have to pay a fee).

What goes into a HIP?

A HIP contains the same documents that your solicitor obtains today when you are buying a property. Documents include details of the property owner (title deeds), planning applications or transport schemes (local authority search) and details of the drainage (drainage search). Whilst this is the minimum that should be in a HIP, additional searches such as mining and environmental reports may also be included. When you sell your home today, there are forms you need to fill in.

The same is true with HIPs.

The Home Use and Home Contents forms give details of the property, what household items (if any) you want to sell and any neighbourhood disputes you may have had. They can be left blank, but their usefulness is reduced if you don't complete them.

The Home Condition Report is a snapshot of the condition of your property. Although it is not a valuation or a full structural survey, it is an extremely useful guide for buyers. The Home Inspectors that perform the inspections are certified under a government scheme and are independently assessed.

The reports are completely objective.

What do you need to do now?

Since HIPs will contain all the documents that a potential buyer needs to buy your property, it would be a good idea to start gathering all this information in one place now. This will include documentation relating to all maintenance work such as a new boiler installation, having an electricity safety check or replacing the guttering. Any guarantees or warranties should also be included. If you live in a leasehold property such as a flat, you need to include copies of the lease, service charges, recent work completed and management company information. These can run to quite a few pages, but all must be made available, so it must be stored in one place.

Finally, you may ask an inspector to have a quick look at your property beforehand so you can fix any problems before a full inspection.

With a completed Home Information Pack, your estate agent can get going straight away to market your house - which he will positively love you for! Even though you don't need one till June next year, some estate agents are saying that if you have one now, it will make your property all the more marketable.

Alternatively, you could go the whole way and try to sell your house yourself. With all the recent publicity about the practices of some estate agents, you might think it's worth a try. Who knows, you could save yourself a few thousand pounds by doing so.

Peter Ambrose is one of the founders of The Partnership, a Home Information Pack provider working with estate agents selling premier properties. His background in law, information technology and business development ensures a thorough grasp of the legal and technology requirements combined with an ability to build the relationships necessary for a successful HIP implementation.

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