A Fully Completed PIQ Can Help Sell Your Home

If you are selling your home, you have to have a Home Information Pack (HIP). No ifs and buts. New legislation means you can't now put your home on the market without having a completed HIP ready and waiting for your buyers. It's the first thing they or their solicitor will ask for.

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An important part of the HIP is the Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ). The onus is on the seller to complete this document - not the estate agent or the solicitor - and filling it in as fully as possible will give a buyer additional information that could help clinch the sale. Any guarantees or certificates should be included. Gaps and lack of information cause doubts and delays.

Evidence of regular servicing and maintenance reassures buyers that the property has been well cared for.

If you are a home buyer, and you see a property you like, you are entitled to ask the estate agent or whoever is advertising the property for sale for a copy of the HIP, which should arrive within 14 days.

Filling in the PIQ need not be difficult. It is as well to pay attention to:

• Boiler/Central heating: If you haven't had it serviced within the last year, then do so now. A benefit of that is a regular gas boiler service can help keep the cost of your fuel bills down by as much as 10%.


• Electrics: When did you last have them inspected? Don't wait for your buyer to produce a report and haggle down your price.


• Flood risk: Check your own flood risk on http://www.environmentagency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods.


• Parking: Give extra details such as hours and cost of any resident parking or meters.


• TV/Internet: Have you got Broadband, cable or satellite? It could be worth providing this.


• Bills: Utilities, Telephone and Council Tax bills will provide useful information.


The HIP must include:


• The PIQ


• Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) or Predicted Energy Assessment (PEA)


• Sustainability information (new homes only)


• Sale statement


• Evidence of Title


• Standard Searches


• Lease (if appropriate)


You will have to provide an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) which will be carried out by a registered Domestic Energy Assessor. Some simple, cost-effective steps to improving your EPC rating are:


• Fitting loft and cavity wall insulation


• Improving your central heating system


• Lagging the hot water tank


• Fitting low energy light bulbs


The HIP and the new PIQ should be viewed as a positive contribution to the home sales market. Our cars have a service history, a logbook and an annual MOT. Why should our families and our investment in a home not be at least as protected as our cars? Taking a little time to complete the PIQ as fully as possible may well reap dividends in today's difficult market.

gas-elec carries out impartial electrical safety inspection and light remedial works. Its unique inspection service provides the residential lettings market with multiple gas checks and electric checks.