The Parliamentary Ombudsman is to be asked to rule on whether the thousands of Home Inspectors who paid for training should be given compensation.
EstateAgentToday.co.uk – Monday 1st March 2010
They would want compensation for the costs of their training and loss of earnings which had been promised, but failed to materialise after the Government’s U-turn on mandatory Home Condition Reports.
The then housing minister Yvette Cooper told Parliament at that time: “The Government’s policy is that mandatory HCRs remain on the table if the industry fails to make a success of the roll-out of HCRs. We will promote the voluntary take-up of HCRs, and have allocated £4m to support their take-up and testing of Home Information Packs. Therefore, Home Inspectors will still be needed and job opportunities for Home Inspectors remain for those who have undertaken training.”
But Home Inspectors say that voluntary take-up has never been promoted and they believe the Government lied.
A new association is being formed, the Residential Property Surveyors Association (RPSA), to take on the fight.
It is one of four associations to come under the umbrella of the Federation of Property Information Providers, headed by Mike Ockenden of AHIPP, and Kate Nicholls, of the personal search trade body COPSO. The remaining organisation is Property and Energy Professionals Association.
Ockenden said the fight to win compensation for Home Inspectors was deadly serious and he saw no reason why it would not end in victory.
He said: “On July 18, 2006, the Government did a U-turn and made Home Condition Reports voluntary. However, both Yvette Cooper and her successor, Caroline Flint, stressed that mandatory HCRs would remain on the table if voluntary take-up was insufficient.
“Voluntary take-up has been negligible but subsequent housing ministers – Margaret Beckett and now John Healey – have given up saying that they are on the table.
It is an absolute disgrace to be coerced into training for the ‘security of a government initiative only to have this unceremoniously scrapped by the next incumbent government albeit a somewhat fragile coalition of left and right.
This is ill considered, totally unethical and immoral. All persons involved in being trained as Home Inspectors should be compensated by the government. The failure of this government to immediately offer such compensation will be regarded by many as the behaviour of a banana republic. Rather than the actions of a most important democratic nation during its years of greatness.
I suggest giving your MP some work to do to bat for you in parliament. A Tory MP probably won’t do this (Mine won’t) but we should try all the Liberal and Labour MP’s after all they brought this in – it is unaffected in Scotland where the HCR Survey is a mandatory component of the HIP. Here in England the estate agents lobby has browbeaten the HIP since its inception.
Where is the morality or joined up thinking in this? Ludicrous, either it is a good idea or it is scrapped across the board. Next thing you know Europe will bring in legislation based on the Scottish model. Meanwhile the cost of giving up work coupled with cost of training and expenses has left me and many others around £40-50,000 lighter as a result. Somebody is going to have to pay for this. There is no point in getting mad but we do need to get even by securing compensation from this government who have decided to scrap the hopes of so many.
Comment by Mike Fahey — 30/5/2010 #
Does any one have any update on the compensation for Home Inspectors?
Comment by adam — 11/8/2010 #