Home owners forced to pay £600 to put up a ‘for sale’ sign from 1 June

Home owners looking to sell their house or flat will have to pay £600 under new Government regulations from 1 June. Cllr Alan Walsh, the Conservative Groups Spokesman for Housing on Bolton Council warned that this new red tape could undermine the stability of the housing market, would increase the costs of moving and would discourage potential sellers from advertising their home.

From 1 June 2007, anyone wanting to sell their home in England and Wales will be forced to pay for an inspector to come into their home and produce a Home Information Pack. If they put up a ‘for sale’ sign or advertise their home without a Pack, they face repeated £200 fines levied by town halls. Estate agents are already encouraging home owners to put their home on the market before 1 June, to avoid the need to pay for a Pack. Conservatives are leading the opposition to the new rules in Parliament.

Cllr Walsh exlained “Moving home is one of the most stressful things anyone can do. Yet Labour’s new red tape threatens to make it worse, not better. Rather than protecting consumers in Bolton, these new regulations will increase the cost of moving and threatens to undermine the stability of the housing market.

“The central part of the Home Information Pack, the keystone around which everything else was constructed, has now been demolished. The Government should go back to the drawing board, rather than introduce ‘half-baked’ HIPs purely to avoid further Ministerial embarrassment. These Packs will be just an additional burden on home buyers on top of soaring council tax bills and stamp duty.”