AHHIP backs down over legal challenge

After a lot of sabre rattling The Association of Home Information Pack Providers(AHHIP) has bowed to the inevitable and decided not to mount a legal challenge to the suspension of HIPs after Government lawyers responded to AHIPP’s lawyers in respect of the grounds for a legal challenge and robustly rejected them. There’s a turnup, I bet AHHIP weren’t expecting that!

After waking up, smelling the coffee and checking the writing on the wall AHIPP director general Mike Ockenden told his members: "This does not mean that the grounds claimed do not have merit, but it does signal that the Government have taken detailed legal opinion before satisfying themselves on the basis for laying the suspension order." Was Ockendon the only person in the UK that thought the Government hadn’t been planning how to get rid of HIPs for months?

He said that any legal challenge would be strongly contested and the outcome not certain. The action could also be extremely expensive.  Even if it succeeded, the Government would "take an aggressive path" to laying an amendment that would have the same result as the suspension. Essentially I think he is saying what we all knew all along. It’s amazing to think that anyone, even AHHIP though that HIPs stood a chance once the Conservatives were in power.

Furthermore, a successful outcome would plunge the market back in turmoil, and there would be extensive non-compliance. "Perversely, those agents complying would be at a considerable disadvantage to those not complying. This would be like to affect the corporate agents in particular – and some of these are AHIPP members," Ockenden advised in his email.  

You really wonder if they are living in some kind of parallel universe where there was even a chance that this might happen.

He went on: "Taking all this into account I cannot recommend that AHIPP enter into a legal challenge, particularly when it is impossible to accurately assess the cost of such an exercise. Many members have indicated that they would not support any action and indeed in some cases they would strongly oppose it."

So in summary I think what we are saying is that its all over for HIPS, lets not give them any more thought and instead start looking forward to making EPCs the success that they deserve to be. Onwards and upwards.