A Home Information Pack is a collection of information that needs to be assembled when you put a residential property on the market.
Due to recent changes, any residential property in England or Wales put on the market (regardless of the amount of bedrooms it has) now requires a HIP.

Also, all estate agents in England and Wales who market homes with HIPs will be required to be registered with an independent arbitration service run by the Ombudsman for Estate Agents (OEA).
Similarly, all HIPs providers must subscribe to the Home Information Pack Code and be registered with the Property Code Compliance Board.

• A HIP Index (essentially a contents list of what's in the HIP)

• An Energy Performance Certificate or EPC (a software-based calculation of the approximate energy costs for running the property, together with an indexed value of the property's current energy efficiency and its potential energy efficiency after the relevant energy efficiency measures have been put in place.)

• A Sale Statement (this gives the basic details of the property, such as name and address of owner, address of the property being sold and tenure, e.g. freehold or leasehold)

• Evidence of title (usually the basic Land Registry registers and title plan)

• Local and Drainage Searches (or a record of the fact that they have been ordered)

Homes can be advertised for sale as soon as the HIP and its contents have been ordered you don't have to wait until the pack is delivered in order to get your home on the market.

Question : Should I let my estate agent add the cost of a HIP as a percentage of his commission ?

It would be a very expensive mistake if you did.

Lets say he offers you a HIP at ½%. That sounds pretty reasonable, but on an average price of homes of around £250K thats actually £1,250 + VAT which works out to a hefty £1,468.75.

Almost four times what it would cost if you bought a HIP either directly from a HIP provider, or if you just paid the agent a flat fee.