The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) is calling for the implementation of HIPs to be postponed until full evidence from research and area trials is available.

It said until this full evidence is collated, an informed decision about the likely effectiveness of HIPs cannot be reached.

Overall, the CML believes the government has been slow to recognise the problems with local authority searches, despite repeated representations on this issue over a period of some years.

These problems are not new and should have been resolved well before HIPs were introduced, it said.

The CML also believes that the HIPs timetable increasingly lacks credibility, with proposals for change still being made less than four months before full implementation, and without proper testing.

In particular, the CML is concerned that the baseline research published in January does not provide sufficient evidence to justify the current proposals for HIPs, while regulatory impact assessments will not be published until late March - far too late for proper scrutiny before implementation on 1 June.

The CML remains interested in exploring the possibilities for "green" mortgages. However, it said at present there is no standard definition of a green mortgage. Other incentives for people to make energy efficiency improvements - such as council tax rebates for energy-saving measures, and readily available EPCs at all points during home-ownership - are much more likely to encourage consumers to take positive energy-saving action, the CML believes.

CML head of policy Jackie Bennett said: "No-one would dispute that the house-buying process is slow in the UK and could usefully be speeded up to benefit consumers. But there is no clear evidence that HIPs will solve the problems.

"This close to the implementation date, there are still far too many unknowns about the potential market impacts. We call on the government to postpone the introduction of HIPs until they have been properly trialled and reviewed." 

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