FROM August, anyone selling a home in England will have to provide a Home Information Pack to potential buyers. But what does it all mean?

It has been announced that the introduction of Home Information Packs (HIPs) is to be delayed until August 1 – when they will be brought in for the sale of homes with four bedrooms or more.

The HIPs were to become compulsory for all home sales in England and Wales from June 1. However, Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly told MPs the packs would be phased in due to a shortage of qualified people to carry out the necessary assessments.

The postponement follows pressure from opposition MPs and a legal challenge mounted by the Royal Institution Of Chartered Surveyors.

Ms Kelly said initially sellers would only have to commission a pack, rather than have one completed before marketing their properties and smaller properties would be brought into the scheme as and when accredited assessors were trained.

HIPs, which look set to cost the house seller between £300 and £1,000, were supposed to be implemented in June last year but were delayed for 12 months as ministers decided to drop unpopular home condition reports. Since then, ministers have insisted that they should instead include energy performance certificates (EPCs) to measure carbon efficiency.

However, this new delay comes after a judge, ruling on a legal challenge from surveyors, said the energy performance certificates should be left out of the packs "for the time being" and Ms Kelly’s revelations that only 520 of the 2,000 energy assessors needed for the new system were fully accredited.

The National Association of Estate Agents said the phased implementation was "confusing things even further" for sellers and expressed disappointment that the Government had not listened to its concerns about the lack of qualified assessors earlier.

The opposition parties accused the government of an "11th-hour climbdown".

"This is a desperate last-minute retreat," said Shadow Housing Minister Michael Gove. "Why did ministers press ahead with a scheme that everyone who knows anything about the housing market told them was flawed?"

The Association of Home Information Pack Providers (AHIPP) said it was utterly disappointed about the delay.

"This latest decision is at the cost of the consumer and the environment," said Mike Ockenden, AHIPP director general.

"Consumers will have to endure the existing, broken house-buying-and-selling process for at least a further two months, costing them time, money and unnecessary stress. In addition, our homes will continue to release the millions of tons of carbon emissions, which were set to be significantly reduced as a result of the EPCs.

"Industry was and is ready for the introduction of HIPs on June 1 and it is only propaganda, spread by those opposing the packs for their own vested interests, that has ultimately led to this delay.

"It is absolutely paramount that we now see the government’s 100 per cent commitment to the new, August 1 date and that the proposed, phased implementation of HIPs is fast-tracked, to ensure that HIPs are available on all homes for sale, as soon as possible."

However, one Kent housing expert added: "I think the announcement throws the future of the packs into doubt.

"Gordon Brown may quickly drop them when he takes over. Plus many sellers of four-bedroom houses may well try to buck the system. They could easily rearrange their furniture to turn a bedroom into a study and avoid the cost of the HIP."

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said there were three million homes with four or more bedrooms – 20 per cent of the market – and he believed it unlikely that people would market their homes with three instead of four bedrooms to save a few hundred pounds.