Horrible Hip Stories

I know I've been here before, moaning on about the uselessness of HIPs. But having now spent 350 of my own quid on one, I have a fresh perspective on the fish/bicycle nature of the beast.
Despite my prejudice I stoically endured the wasted hours spent babysitting the EPC inspector while he counted the number of energy efficient lightbulbs in my house (if they trust us to tell them when we last replaced the guttering and if we have punched our neighbours recently, surely we could do this ourselves?).
I waited patiently for the 'mini-hip' (which sounds more like something sold at the M&S food halls than a nearly empty document) as the window of early autumnal opportunity was swinging shut in the breeze.
And I tried very hard not to think about what I could have spent my £350 on, and the wear and tear to the delete button of my potential buyer's solicitor.
But what I did do is to remind myself that at least no one at all will read it. Which is lucky really because for my £350, the search company have given me comprehensive details on the wrong house. Same number, same road name, unfortunately different town.
Hip Hip Hooray? Hardly.

Heads you lose

Presenting a property for sale is a delicate balancing act.

As a buyer you want to see a clean space into which you could seamlessly slip yourself, the other half, three kids, the cat, the dog and Uncle Tom Cobley, while at the same time it must have some of the acoutrements of life that make a house a home.

Usually a few neutral pictures are recommended, perhaps a strategically placed Post-it saying something aspirational, like 'Call shoemaker - all four pairs ready', and some carefully picked books on the shelf which suggest that the inhabitant of such a desirable residence would be intelligent, interesting and well travelled.

However, it is vital that you allow no aspect of your real life to show. So the Post-it saying 'Social worker called - wants to discuss court dates', the jumbo pack of flea bombs, and the lifetime's collection of self-help literature must be kept out of sight.

So, of course, must any dismembered human body parts you may have in your home.

My very first purchase, a lovely flat overlooking Clapham Common, was scuppered when, on the measuring-up-for-curtains third visit the owner proudly showed me what he kept in the cupboards above the wardrobe: three shrunken human heads. I suspect the look on my face may have told him that in such situations offering a cup of coffee is acceptable, but offering a glimpse at your mutilated body parts collection is stepping into lose-that sale territory.

The reverse is also true, of course.

On a recent viewing of a 'distressed sale', or, as I was told delicately by the agent, a property being sold by 'one of our corporate clients', my suspicions were raised when not only was the garden gate missing, but the doorbell had gone too. The property had been described as well presented, and offering scope. Turns out that the fleeing previous inhabitants had taken everything that wasn't nailed down, everything that was, and quite a few items that had been plumbed in too. The scope for personalising this property extended to the 'opportunity' to choose a new toilet, bath, garden fence, and internal doors. Luckily they seemed to have left many of the walls and all the floorboards, so not much scope there then.

Every property has its faults, and when the right person comes along they will look beyond the missing sanitaryware and will, undoubtedly make it into a lovely home. And, as for the guy with the heads, I hear he sold soon after I dropped out. I can only deduce that he subsequently decided to keep his unusual interest where it belonged - in the closet.

The vendors' revolt

It seems an appropriate fate for the much disputed HIP that, according to a report from Spicerhaart, most buyers don't read them, and the majority of vendors are not even bothering to order one.
By the time the Home Information Pack had been thoroughly diluted from the initial idea, which included a potentially useful home condition report, few people, apart from those involved in the business of selling them that is, could really see the point. But, in the political tradition of 'I've started so I'll finish', this turkey of a document, which delays sales and costs us a few hundred quid became fully operational in April.
So now we have to let a stranger into our homes to tell us to get more insulation, a new boiler, some energy-saving lightbulbs, oh, yes, and pull out those rattly original Georgian windows and put in some lovely double glazing that will be in landfil in twenty years.
And we have to pay for searches that will be shredded on arrival at our buyers' solicitors, and duly re-ordered.
So, if only to prevent the futile felling of a few trees, I'm really pleased at this British show of bugger-the-£200-fine bravado. It may not be quite at the level of the Iranian public's recent protests, but if it hurries the demise of this emperor's new clothes of conveyancing, then power to the people!

Pigs, vicars and lunatics

The BBC this week reported that a Dorset family has been banned from selling their house to a Scottish couple because of a covenant preventing a sale to anyone from outside the area.

Apparently they weren't aware of this restriction when they bought the property, and, with all that troublesome small print involved in conveyancing, they would hardly be the first to assume that they were safe to leave it to the solicitors. So, you do have to feel some sympathy for them having found out that their pool of buyers is somewhat reduced.

Covenants are strange things. They range from the relatively benign, such the two that I have had on properties I've owned; the prohibition from keeping pigs in a flat, and the ban on turning your home into a lunatic asylum. To the potentially extremely expensive.

In 2007 I spoke to a couple, Gail and Andrew Wallbank, who had just lost hundreds of thousands of pounds because of a covenant in the deeds of their farmhouse. It states that the owners of the house are responsible for repairs to the chancel (the eastern end of a church, in which the pulpit and choristers' stalls are found) of their local crumbling church. Andrew's father, who originally bought the property, was told at the time that it was an ancient law that would never be enforced. But, unfortunately, the Church of England decided that, with coffers low, it was time to resurrect some historical responsibilities and the decreed the Wallbanks liable.

Which just goes to show that when we're told not to worry about the small print by an estate agent, a solicitor, or even a vicar, we should be very very suspicious.

Pack, move, then match

The last time I moved house it took me weeks to get over it. I always use a professional removals company and try not to pack so much as a teaspoon myself. But, despite this, it probably took ten years off my life and I vowed not to do it again - at least not for a while.

So I was astonished to read that the first potential winner we've had for years at Wimbledon is spending the week before the event moving into his very first mansion.

While I would love to imagine Andy Murray serving his balled up socks into a tea chest, and carrying washing machines on that muscular back, I suspect he's being even less hands on than I usually aim to be. But, even so, should he not be at home practising grunting and drinking Lemon Barley Water, or whatever it is tennis pros do?

Far be it for me to tell him how to prepare for Wimbledon, but I would say that even the most 'managed' move requires a lot of overseeing, and that watching boxes marked 'kitchen' being hauled up to the master bedroom, and arguing with BT about the line they were supposed to have put on, is probably not what his coach had planned for this week.

The modern monarch

Was woken early by Prince Charles at the front door. He has, apparently, heard about my plans to replace the Elizabethan-styled-lattice-work double glazing on the front of my late Victorian house with something a little more in period, and he's not happy.
It's not the first time he's intervened in my plans. There was the time he tried to persuade me to turn the top bedroom into a hayloft. Then there was the black mark he daubed on the front door when middle child had chicken pox. But when he tried to enlist my youngest in a new 'club' which espoused traditional values and involved climbing up chimneys (all brushes supplied) I finally lost my rag.
This time I was ready for him. "I've got a note," I told him. "From English Heritage." And he slunk off sulkily, muttering about what he's going to do when he's king.
As if that wasn't enough Richard Rogers has promised to call by. He said he wanted to talk about the windows, and the great idea he has had for something a bit more modern...

Nothing to declare?

When selling our homes, we, naturally, want to emphasise the positives: the new boiler, the great local school, the deceptively spacious shed. And one thing we do not want to discuss is the awful neighbour who has driven us mad moaning about access to his back passage and deliberately, probably, broke our downpipe when he was cleaning out his guttering last autumn.

But what about truly apalling, psycho neighbours who actually drive you from your home? There is a form in the HIP bundle to cover disputes with neighbours and, theoretically at least, we have a legal duty to warn buyers that Fred next door plays thrash metal from six til six and, when remonstrated with, has threatened to cook and eat the livers of our children.

I've been in this situation once, when living in a flat in Clapham North. The terribly helpful (read desperate to sell to anyone at any price) vendor assured us that the neighbours were a very nice young couple. Well, I have to admit that they were relatively young, sometimes a couple, and I didn't really get to know them well enough to appraise their characters. However, the report she gave didn't really prepare me for living next to a prostitute and her crack dealing pimp. We lasted about a year, then moved out, and we didn't, I will admit, tell the people we sold to anything about the neighbours.

But a recent court case would suggest that the law in this regard is completely toothless anyway.

Poor Sophie Duffy, from Amersham, was assured that the nextdoor neighbour, a Mr Mack, was 'quiet as a mouse'. The owner even filled in an official form saying she did not know of any dispute with neighbours. Which was a strange oversight as the owner had, in fact, been to the police several times saying that she was 'concerned for her safety' after her neighbour had thrown stones and her window, kicked the fence separating their gardens, and threatened to kill her.

However, Judge Andrew Rutherford ruled that the disturbances caused by Mr Mack were not 'ongoing', and so the vendor did not have to mention them on the form. Which left Miss Duffy with a legal bill of £29,000.

One positive, however, was that the said noisy and agressive neighbour decided to go home and live with his mum, who, one hopes, can put up with his youthful high spirits, and will not be forced to sell her own home to get away from him. However, if you're thinking of buying and the neighbour is a Mrs Mack, don't necessarily believe what it says on the form.