The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has taken the unprecedented step of issuing judicial review proceedings challenging the government's handling of Home Information Packs (HIPs) under the Housing Act 2004 in England and Wales.
The decision to take this step was made at the highest levels of RICS and after much careful thought and high quality legal advice. It also followed many attempts to negotiate and discuss with government officials and ministers - increasingly over recent months these attempts have been rebuffed.
RICS believes that the government has failed to consult on a major policy initiative. The resulting potential for a detrimental impact on the housing market, the public and professional firms is great.
RICS has challenged government to ensure that in future it consults properly with industry on such major proposals and produces evidence to support its policy making. A judicial review is a procedure for challenging the lawfulness of a decision or action by a public body, such as a government department or a local authority. In other words, it is a challenge to the way in which a decision has been made, rather than the rights and wrongs of the conclusion reached.
RICS's concerns include:
* The government's implementation of HIPs, which RICS believes has been poorly conceived and will have an adverse effect on the market, consumers and small businesses.
* The determination to introduce the scheme from 1 June, despite the omission of significant and unbiased trials on the impact of HIPs.
* The belief that current proposals will not have the impact on tackling climate change that the government is claiming.
* The lack of qualified and accredited domestic energy assessors for the system to work effectively.
RICS does not yet know what impact this action will have on the future of the HIP programme - only Parliament or the Courts could intervene to prevent implementation at this stage. A House of Commons vote on 16 May agreed to the introduction of HIPs from 1 June. This will now be debated at the House of Lords over the coming week.
There is no doubt that, for the future and whatever happens in the next few weeks, energy assessors will be required to fulfil the requirements of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive a piece of European legislation that the UK must implement and the aims and principles of which RICS fully supports.
