Correct me if I am wrong but the housing market is the engine room of the modern British Economy. It is from here that confidence to spend ultimately stems, be it to buy new homes, sell exising ones or just release disposable income.

So assuming I am correct, the housing market needs to be nurtured, coxed and healed for this blasted recession to end….

Then what the heck are government doing by expanding the already ridiculed HIPS scheme!

Just when buying ans selling houses needs to be as easy and painless as possible they add another barrier - FARCE.

Britian desperately needs the housing market to begin to repair - this can only happen if several things change.

1) The banks must have sufficient liquidity to begin lending again. ( new large scale lenders such as insurance companies and investment funds are looking at lending money to help in this area.)
2) The general populaton needs to be reassured that prices are unlikely to fall much further. (If you think that you are going to get your home 10% cheaper in 3 months why would you not wait to buy.)
3) Additional charges and red tape must be minimised to make the purchase / sales of your home as cheap and easy as possible.

Below is the article in more detail feel free to read and question….

Now Labour makes it even HARDER to sell your home (just as buyers finally return to the market)

In a move which triggered a furious backlash, Ministers have tightened the rules on the widely-condemned Home Information Packs.

They will now have to be available on the very first day a house goes on sale, rather than 28 days later. And they have been made even more complicated with the addition of a six-page questionnaire.

Experts described the rule changes to the £300 packs as ‘absolutely farcical’ and ‘utterly bonkers’.

The shock announcement by Housing Minister Margaret Beckett was said to show ‘a complete lack of understanding’ of the paralysed property market.

Experts said homeowners already desperate to sell, such as young couples starting a family who need a bigger home, will be horrified that it could become even more difficult.

Those waiting for a better time to put property on the market could be further deterred. By a bleak coincidence, the bad news on HIPs came as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors offered a glimmer of hope for the housing market. RICS said continuing price falls had finally sparked a small increase in expressions of interest from potential buyers - the first for two years.

But the decision to tighten the HIPs rules enraged the industry. Experts said it ran completely counter to other policies such as pumping billions of taxpayers’ money into the banking system, Gordon Brown’s mortgage bailout pledge and stamp duty holiday schemes. Ministers claim research on 16,000 transactions showed they were completed up to to six days earlier when a HIP was available.

But Tory spokesman Grant Shapps said: ‘The housing market is on its knees and Labour’s response is to make it more difficult and more expensive to sell your home. ‘If anything, Ministers should be using their emergency powers to suspend HIPs and provide a shot in the arm to the ailing market.’

Peter Rollings, of estate agency Marsh & Parsons, said his clients see HIPs as a complete waste of time and money. About 150 homes go on sale at his chain every month, but he has never heard of a buyer asking to see a HIP. ‘It is utterly bonkers and absolutely ridiculous,’ said Mr Rollings.

Nicholas Leeming, of the property website Propertyfinder.com, said: ‘It shows the Housing Minister is totally detached from the crisis in the property market. ‘The market is completely paralysed. It is farcical that HIPs will be allowed to make life even more difficult.’

HIPs are meant to provide all the information needed to sell a property, although they have been scaled down from the original plans.
At present, it is possible to put up a home for sale as soon as a HIP has been commissioned and paid for, with a 28-day grace period before it needs to be produced.

The concession was due to be scrapped on December 31 but, given the problems in the market, it had been widely assumed that the deadline would be extended indefinitely. Now the grace period will go in April. If a HIP is not largely completed, it will be illegal for an estate agent to market a property, with fines of £200. To make matters worse, the packs are to be made even bigger and more complicated. Sellers will also have to complete a new six-page Property Information Questionnaire. Its long list of questions includes complicated issues such as boundary changes and planning permission. If sellers fill in an answer incorrectly, they could be held liable for providing misleading information.

The Law Society warned last night that a buyer is unlikely to trust an answer provided by a desperate seller. President Paul Marsh said: ‘This is a recipe for argument. It is yet another example of the Government displaying a complete lack of understanding of the property market and no sign of sympathy with the buyer and seller.’

Mr Shapps, whose party has pledged to scrap HIPs, also expressed surprise at Mrs Beckett’s timing. She recently admitted to MPs that HIPs were ‘not perhaps the perfect vehicle we might wish for’.