CONTRADICTORY CONSERVATIVE PLANS MISS THE POINT - HOLMES

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 7th Dec 2007

Commenting on proposals outlined in the launch of the Conservatives' Home-Buying Review, Liberal Democrat Shadow Housing Minister, Paul Holmes MP said:

"These proposals suggest the Tories seem set to continue Labour's politics of tokenism that have resulted in Britain's current housing crisis.

"The Conservatives have completely missed the point by suggesting that home buying could be simplified and speeded up by making offers legally binding.

"There would be no change in timescale as buyers would have to commission local authority searches and home condition surveys before making their offer instead of after.

"The obvious answer to speeding up this process is to introduce a HIPs system including a legally binding survey and search made available in advance by the seller as was originally proposed in 1997. This would reduce the expensive and lengthy process where multiple buyers commission searches and surveys only to drop out of the process at a later date as a result of what they belatedly discover.

"What is required is a proper evaluation of the HIPs, which could have been of huge value to house buyers, rather than this unsubstantiated Conservative scaremongering."