Too much news, not enough time

Here are some links to articles that I wanted to discuss yesterday but ran out of time:

Max Hastings explaining 'Why I fear the lights will go out in Britain' - He's right and I have blogged about this before.

The Mail with more on Peter Mandelson, Oleg Deripaska, Nat Rothschild, Aluminium, Alcoa, the loss of British jobs and questions about Peter Mandelson's role - It's a potentially explosive story but I doubt it will be allowed to gain traction.

The new government have killed the unnecessary and unloved HIPS (Home Information Packs), well done Eric Pickles - I did want to explain how HIPS were the bastard child of the EU, John Prescott and Yvette Cooper and just how bad an idea they were. Instead take a read of Samizdata's piece.

The BBC's Stephanie Flanders explains how Germany is really to blame gor Greece's economic woes:

'Whenever Germany tells you how much the Greeks are costing them, remember this: German exports to Greece have risen by 133% since the single currency started. Greek exports to Germany have risen by 13%. The resulting trade gap between the two countries is one reason why German banks are now sitting on so much Greek debt.'

If only I had time to fisk that article.

Sheer Labour government genius

This Labour government's passion for regulation, control and form-filling seems to have no end. In addition to the new internet access recording the Labour government have decided that when the property market is collapsing they should add some more bureaucracy to it. From today the Home Information Pack (HIP) gets more onerous, thanks to Grant Shapps, the shadow Hosuing Minister we know that the new rules mean:

"* New delays if you sell your home. The Government has cancelled the 'first day marketing' provision that allowed sellers to market their home if a HIP has been ordered but not yet been completed.
* New untrustworthy Property Information Questionnaires. All Packs must have a new questionnaire completed by the seller - but the buyer cannot be sure the answers are accurate on issues like past dry rot or damp, insurance claims and the history of flooding.
* Sellers sued for honest mistakes by the buyer: Disputes about the content of Property Information Questionnaires will end up in the courts, making buying and selling even more of a legal minefield.
* Heavy-handed town hall fines: Town halls have been instructed to "identify specific cases of non-compliance and enforce the requirements" - and start fining homeowners £200 a time if they do not follow the new rules."

This Labour government just "doesn't get it" and will regulate the Country into inactivity if it is not stopped and stopped soon.

Labour government bury a negative report about HIPs

The Telegraph reports that:

"A secret Government report has condemned compulsary Home Information Packs (HIPs) for property-sellers as a "waste of time".

Research commissioned by ministers, but never published, found that both sellers and buyers view the packs as "long, boring and technical" and see them as being of "no benefit".

...

The report concluded that house buyers and sellers "don't see the purpose" of the packs and show a "a lack of engagement, experience and interest". It added that "neither buyers or sellers are proactively enquiring about HIPs".

While the Government has spent almost £900,000 on an advertising campaign to promote the packs, the report also found that "amongst buyers and sellers, awareness, knowledge and understanding of HIPs is poor" and that consumers are "not sufficiently interested enough to ask to see a HIP".

The study also found that "estate agents struggled to think of positive comments about HIPs", with the majority considering the packs a "waste of time".

Grant Shapps, the shadow housing minister, said: "The Government has been caught red handed trying to hide a damning indictment of this pointless and expensive red tape. One year on, the public don't trust the paper these packs are written on.""

Who could believe that this Labour government would introduce a rubbish policy, bury negative reports on this policy and keep on coining the tax?

Could Gordon Brown get any more stupid?

The media are reporting breathlessly that Gordon Brown is considering suspending stamp duty in an emergency measure to kick-start the housing market. Apparently the idea, being worked on by the Treasury, is part of a package of help for those famous "hard-pressed families".

Now what might the consequences of this leaked news be? Well if you were considering purchasing a house over the next few months wouldn't you hold off in case stamp duty is reduced soon. Yes, Gordon "economic genius" Brown has managed to screw the UK housing market again. His stealth taxes on housing (or more exactly moving) have disgusted me for some time now, massive increases in the rates of stamp duty, not increasing the stamp duty bands as house prices rose and of course the introduction of HIPs. Rather than being an economic genius, Gordon Brown has been revealed as just a genius for raising taxation and wasting the proceeds. The public have just worked out that the Emperor has no clothes and the public is angry.

More housing market news

It would appear that "There has been a slump in the number of mortgages being approved for home buyers by UK banks. The British Bankers Association (BBA) said that in October its members lent 44,105 mortgages for house purchase. That was 19% fewer than in September, and 37% down on October 2006 when more than 70,000 mortgages were lent.
The figures suggest that the housing market is about to go through a significant slowdown due to high prices and higher borrowing costs."

Who'd have thought it? The housing market is collapsing, so what does this government do? They impose an extra cost of moving house - HIPs - genius, sheer genius.

HIP extention

Today it has been announced that Home Information Packs (HIPs) will apply to 1 and 2 bedroom properties from 14 December. "HIP Payment Services chief executive Jeff Smith says: "Today’s announcement will be greeted with much enthusiasm and relief from the industry, which has been tirelessly campaigning for HIPs to be fully extended across the whole market, since their extension to three bedroom homes back in September. He adds: “With speculation rife and various inaccuracies about the impact of HIPs on the market being banded around by the Tories and other anti-HIP groups within the industry, it was essential that the Government reaffirmed its commitment to packs and announced this final and vital implementation. “With HIPs fully rolled out across the market they will finally be able to bring about the many benefits they were initially designed to achieve – a faster, more transparent process which will aid a more informed buying decision.”"

What marvelous news for us all, HIPS are working so well that they can be extended. Of course all the spin from the HIPs chief exec and the latest government incompetent to deal with this matter cannot be allowed to hide the facts. Let's look at what the experts rather than the bureaucrats have to say.

This is the text of a press release from the National Association of Estate Agents.

"LATEST NAEA SURVEY AGAIN SHOWS THE ADVERSE EFFECT HOME INFORMATION PACKS ARE HAVING ON THE MARKET

Results indicate agents continuing to call for HIPs to be abandoned.

A survey of members conducted by the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) has produced the largest response ever to one of its surveys with over 1000 replies indicating what a contentious issue HIPs still are.

Over the past 10 days members were asked to compare the market this October to the same time last year. The results show that 83% of agents have found that requests for market appraisals have dropped with 9% of respondents finding a reduction of more than 50%.

When asked about the change in the number of instructions for 3 or more bedroom properties, a staggering 76% stated that they had seen decreases in excess of 10% of which 46% had seen a drop in excess of 30%. This compares with a much smaller reduction for 1 or 2 bedroom properties with 37% of respondents finding a drop of more than 10%.

Peter Bolton King, Chief Executive of the NAEA, comments: 'Clearly everyone accepts that there are a number of financial and economic factors that have caused the market to take a breather after 7 hectic years. However, these figures show that there is an anomaly between instructions on properties where a HIP is required and where one is not.'

He continues: 'I have heard of many examples where potential sellers have decided against putting their property up for sale because they do not want to risk wasting £300 or indeed much more, if they decide not to sell. It has been correctly stated previously that many sellers decided to 'beat the HIP' by marketing their property before August 1st 2007. It would therefore be reasonable to think that there would be a lull for a few months thereafter.'

The NAEA therefore asked members how available stock levels were year on year - 76% of the 1050 respondents stated that in October their stock was either the same or less.

Peter explains the significance of this: "At this stage of the market cycle, with sales slowing and normally a traditional autumn bulge in instructions, it would be normal to expect stock levels to be significantly higher. The fact that only 24% are saying that this is the case should worry the Government as this is just not normal. This once again appears to show the adverse effect HIPs are having on the market, the lives of consumers and indeed the overall economy."

The survey then went on to ask the question of 'What should happen to HIPs next?' The NAEA survey gave several options of ways to move forward including the full roll out of HIPs. However, only a tiny 6% felt that this was the right option with 76% stating that HIPs should be scrapped but Energy Performance Certificates should instead apply to all properties.

Peter says: "Despite the fact that agents have now had an opportunity to work with HIPs it is clear that the vast majority of respondents do not believe that they add value to the process and are finding it hard to get purchasers to take interest in them. We feel very sorry for the many Domestic Energy Assessors who are waiting for the opportunity to earn a living.

'As a result we again call on the Government to take into account the above evidence and to reflect on the potential increased damage to the market if they roll HIPs out across all properties. We would urge the Government to take the opportunity to review the situation and find a quick way of enabling the Energy Performance Certificates to be applied to all properties without the need for a HIP.'"

Do the government actually want the UK housing market to collapse? Maybe they have a secret plan that depends upon this happening.

Alternatively are they merely so thick and in thrall to the EU that they just blindly follow orders. The defence that "I was only following orders" was not an acceptable defence at the Nuremberg trials and similarly once order has been restored in this country it will prove to be no defence come the reckoning.

HIP extension

HIPs are to be extended to 3 bedroom or larger propoerties from 10 September 2007 according to the BBC and we know how reliable their news presentation is. "Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps called the plan "pointless red tape", adding that it would lead to extra costs and bureaucracy. "Pushing ahead with Hips will just make life harder and more expensive for people buying and selling property," he said. " Mmm just what the country needs as we head towards a massive recession, heck let's call it what it is - a depression, an extra tax on labour mobility as house prices crash around us. I don't think the income to the Treausury from HIPs will make up for the loss in income from stamp duty as house prices fall.

By the way, has anyone seen Gordon Brown since the financial markets started to fall? Surely he has some comforting words about how he has ended boom and bust for ever...

HIPs are back on Wednesday

Take a read of these articles to bring yourself up to speed. How will the new Gordon Brown loving Daily Mail treat HIPs now? Don't forget they start for four bedroom and larger houses on Wednesday 1 August.

More on broken HIPs

I have blogged several times about the HIP debacle, see here, here, here, here and here and to be honest I am running out of puns relaing to HIPs but as this government lurches from disaster to disaster over this policy, I have no choice but to carry on.

To recap the government haver decided to delay the introduction of HIPs for two months and then to introduce them (initially) only for the ridiculously wealthy who have a four bedroom house or larger. Of course the government didn't really thisnk this thgrough, if you remove the market for HIPs for two months and so put it into people's minds that you might drop the plan altogether, then companies who have set up to supply energy assessors might re-evaluate their position and so they have. Yesterday the Guardian reported that "Energy-assessors.com said it has laid off around 100 fully trained staff who were due to start providing energy assessments of homes for Hips on June 1." Stephen Callaghan, director of energy-assessors.com, said: "Regrettably, in light of the government's announcement last month on the future of home information packs, our joint venture partners have decided that no further investment in this company is considered appropriate at this uncertain time. We see no future in employing assessors ourselves."

The latest problem to emerge is that energy asessors are looking to the government to reimburse them for their wasted training costs. "Many who spent around £9,000 on training are considering suing the government. Just 18% of houses sold have four or more bedrooms." I read at Burning Your Money that "Total private sector costs are estimated at £100-250m, which means plenty more law suits to come.".

This was a dumb idea, from a dumb government that has cost much money to not setup, will cost more to fully introduce, possibly even more to cancel and will of coursae cost anyone selling a house more money. This government's policies on stamp duty and now this have reduced mobility of labour and constricted the supply of housing onto the market so fuelling the spiralling rise in house prices until the crash comes of course and it's coming. Joined up government; I think not.

Do I detect the smell of burning lingerie?

On 16 May Yvette Cooper (Minister for Housing and Planning) stated in the House of Commons that "According to the latest estimates, 2,000 energy assessors will be needed at the beginning of June, rising to 2,500 by the end of the month. More than 2,200 have passed their examinations, and over 3,000 more are in training. Of those, around 1,100 are accredited or their accreditation is currently being processed." Yesterday, 22 May, Ruth Kelly (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) admitted that there weren't enough assessors trained and accredited "There are over 2,500 people currently in training. A further 3,200 have already passed their home inspector or domestic energy assessor exams. Of those, 1,500 have been accredited or have applied for accreditation, but only 520 have been fully accredited".

Now if on 22 May there are only 520 fully accredited assessors, how many of the 1,100 mentioned by Yvette Cooper as being accredited or having their accreditation processed were in the former rather than the latter camp at the time? Was Yvette Cooper trying to pull the wool over our eyes in the style of her husband's boss? On 6 May did the Government really think that the balance of the 1,100 would all be fully accredited by 1 June along with another 900 who had passed their exams but not yet applied for accreditation? How long does the accreditation process take?

It is nice to see that Ruth Kelly has all the aptitude for this area of her responsibility that her predecessor had. In case you didn't know, HIPs were designed when this policy area came under the purview of the ODPM (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister).

A little bit of class warfare

The backbenchers are restless, they have been pulled into line over the leadership of their party, Gordon Brown and his henchmen have made sure that no challenge from the left could materialise. A few scraps need to be thrown to them so that the rumblings of dissent recede. Hence the two policy announcements yesterday: first HIPs - these have been postponed for two months and when they are introduced it will only be on the houses of rich folk who have a four bed roomed house or larger, secondly on road pricing - the insertion of "green" differential pricing provisions means that "4x4" or "gas guzzlers" can be charged more per mile. Will this satisfy more on the left than it annoys amongst the middle class Labour voters?

Slipped HIP

It appears that faced with a legal challenge from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors the Government might be about to postpone the introduction of the HIP (due on 1 June). Apparently a judge ruling on a legal challenge from surveyors, proposed leaving out the energy certificates "for the time being".

This policy has been ill thought out even by the low standards of this government and I see from the BBC report that finally the root cause of the policy has been fingered - "They would also ensure that the UK complies with an EU directive which comes into force in 2009." Just as with the policy to close rural Post Offices (article to follow), the EU is the instigator.

UPDATE... HIPs will be brought in on 1 August for four bedroom properties (or larger). It's OK, only rich folk will be hit by this tax and they have enough money! No mention of what extra consultations will take place, mybe this is a delay so there are close to enough inspectors trained. This Government... Does anyone know where I can find someone to arrange a drinks party at a beer manufacturing facility?

Clearing up a confusion on HIP

Many articles in the written and spoken press are stating that the fine for marketing a house without a HIP is £200, this is not accurate. In fact the fine is £200 per day see here or here. Of course you wont find any mention of a fine at all on the government's own site here, is anyone really surprised by this omission? This government, or more exactly the Treasury, is once again raising money by imposing another tax fine on a once legal activity.

Are you HIP to what's happening

The Home Information Pack is due to be made a requirement of marketing a house from 1 June. What is the purpose of this new requirement? Many have stated that it is an EU imposed regulation, if so what other countries are implementing such a requirement? Others postulate that it is the fault of John Prescott and his former department who were trying to find ways of raising new taxes. I would love either of the above theories to be true; I am not sure which I detest more the bloated EU bureaucrats or the equally bloated Deputy PM.

Either way, I have been predicting that the imposition of HIP would cause a rush of properties onto the market and so reduce house prices, today the first evidence appeared. At the same time Gordon Brown may actually have clicked that he may not want to start his premiership off with such an economic failure and so it appears that he may be about to do his first U-turn. As you can see from that article the Housing Minister is Yvette Cooper. Her husband is of course Blinky Ed Balls who is GBs number two at the Treasury. Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall at the Balls/Cooper house at breakfast tomorrow morning?