One way or another it affects you
On last week's podcast with Paul Broadhead of AHIPP, I mentioned a recent survey conducted on behalf of AXA that claimed 4 million adults were stained with a less-than-pure credit record.
Whenever I first mention (to industry bods) the concern I have for these people trying to procure a mandatory HIP before selling their homes, there's usually a quick dismissal until I press the line-of-argument further by reminding of the many - millions - of people that have little change from their salaries once obligations are met each month.
I want money!
Consumer debt in the UK is currently over £1.25 trillion, the economy is on the dip and next year a swathe of fixed rate mortgage deals expire. Many holders of these mortgages are sub-prime, meaning they will struggle to find comparably affordable/acceptable lenders in this credit-crunched economy.
Actually, I don't know why I have to sell it so hard because you - a DEA - know only too well of the financial pains being felt in the community.
How many DEAs, I wonder, have been "credit-cursed" during this journey to a new career?
Maybe you are one of them?
Unlocking your home... to escape!
In an ironic - yet bitter - twist, maybe the industry you hoped to serve is now the very same that traps you in your home because, basically, you are skint; drained of your savings with nowhere to turn.
Maybe you need to quickly sell, intending to rent somewhere for a while in the hope of salvaging something financially before being pushed... but can no longer afford to?
The point is, it's so easy to become a victim of circumstance and - as 4 million people already know - the credit knife.
Yet this new government-mandated HIP industry is currently set-up to both exclude, and punish, those who might well be acting in their own best financial interests.
Who cares?
Well, you should, for one - Notwithstanding the fact that I might be writing about you; It's your business. Don't you want it?
David Perkins shares anecdotal evidence in his recent musings:
...I have heard of problems where would-be sellers are in financial trouble – serious trouble forcing them to sell their homes. Yet they fail a credit check and the HIP providers will not prepare a HIP, so the agent cannot lawfully put their homes on the market.
Sure, we are only talking about a few people, so what? But of course estate agents do not think like that. Our job is to help, and to help everybody.
When I said on the podcast that this could be a HIP vulnerability, I was really scrabbling for the words, Achilles Heel.
A "free-market" needs fluidity. It also needs those in distress to quickly dispose of assets to best serve both their own interest, and, simultaneously, the efficient running of the "free-market" itself.
If industry is to pre-empt a solution (as it has sought to do with The HIP Code), it should think it through and not forget that negative equity should be a part of that thinking too - In other words, knocking people into further debt when they are trying to get out of debt, is not an option that would go down well... I mean, the industry really doesn't need any more powerful opponents, does it (Citizens Advice Bureau)?
HIPs Trap Homeowners
One of the possible (Daily Wail) headlines to come during next year, I fear.
Aye... Next year; the final year leading into the next General Election.
Tags: Home-Information-Pack
