My wife and I along with our 1 year old son currently live in a 3 bed maisonette.
My wife wanted to move purely to live in a house with a garden so we got a few valuations done.
We then put the house on the market. It has been on for just over a week with a minimum 2 week contract with estate agent.
We then went to see northern rock (who is our current mortgage provider) about how much we could borrow. He got back to us a couple of days later stating that basically they couldnt give us any money.

We have recieved letters from estate agent about charges for the home information pack along with solicitors charges - we at no point were told or instructed their solicitors to represent us and were not told about the HIP pack.

Now i am worried that if we couldnt get a morgage with another company then do we still have to pay for a hip pack and solicitors etc as our place is currently on the market.

I know we done this the wrong way i.e should have seen morgage advisor first then put house on market but northern rock originally said it should be ok, but we failed the credit scoring process. plus my wife was in such a hurry to get our place on the market due to the market being slow at the mo.

any advice appreciated

Hi - I am an estate agency manager and i am not permitted to put a property on the market until the H.I.P has been instructed.

This means discussing the terms of the hip (costs and whether the vendor pays upfront or offsets) If the seller agrees to the terms they then pay for the hip or arrange a credit agreement with the hip company(who are solicitors).

If you have arranged neither and havent signed anything to state that you have agreed to pay for it then when you remove your property from the market there should be no comeback. It is worth me mentioning to you that if your agent has been marketing your property without a h.i.p being ordered the fines are up to £200 per day marketing took place.

It is difficult without seeing what you have signed - so read through any paperwork you have signed (which you should definately have copies of) and make sure. If nothing is stated about the h.i.p there should be no reason you cant withdraw your property with no financial comebacks.

Hi

A HIP pack will definately be required before the estate agents market your property, you will find places online that do them for about £300.

Solicitors do not need to be instructed at this stage (they do not need to get involved until you have accepted an offer) so you shouldnt have to pay anything to them yet. Also you're best to ring around solicitors and get prices anyway because the ones that the Estate Agents recommend are usually more expensive, I expect the Estate Agents is getting their cut!

It may be worth finding out how long a HIP pack is valid for and then at least if you do have it done now and cant get a new mortgage at the moment maybe in the near future when the 'credit crunch' has calmed down youl be able to get a new mortgage and re-use the HIP pack?

I think HIP packs are an absolute con!!!

Having been into various aspects of HIP, mostly posted on MS, one point only recently dawned on me when I was speaking with a solicitor. The HIP has to be acceptable to your solicitor and while I imagine all professionally done ones would be it seems sensible to find a solicitor you are happy with and get them to do the HIP subject to cost and separate from instructing them further.