NEW legislation affecting people selling their homes could cause a leap in house prices and penalise the owners of older properties, says one of Wharfedale's leading estate agents.

The Government's introduction of mandatory Home Information Packs (HIPs) this summer is intended to improve the home buying and selling process.

From June 1 this year, all home owners in England and Wales will need to prepare one of these packs before putting their house up for sale.

National bodies including the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and the National Association of Estate Agents, however, are calling for the postponement of the introduction of mandatory HIPs, claiming it could hit the housing market hard and disadvantage people wanting to buy or sell a house.

Patrick McCutcheon, of local estate agent Dacre, Son and Hartley, is calling for the legal HIP requirement to be stalled, and would like sellers to be able to put their house on the market before being required to produce a HIP.

The HIPs plan was originally aimed at streamlining the house buying and selling process and cutting down on the number of transactions which collapse before contracts are exchanged.

But Mr McCutcheon, based at the firm's Ilkley office, anticipates that the early introduction of the new system, before much of the industry is ready for it, may destabilise the housing market, and even slow down and complicate the process of selling or buying a house.

One of his greatest concerns is the fast introduction of a energy efficiency certificate as part of the HIPs system, as potential sellers in many areas may struggle to obtain a certificate quickly.

Mr McCutcheon said: "There simply aren't enough energy performance inspectors available to carry out the energy efficiency reports.

"Vendors will find a delay of some weeks to put their property to the market, and there are punitive fines in place if a property is marketed without a Home Information Pack, of £200 per property per day."

Concerns about this and about the impending requirement for the HIP may lead to a glut in the property market before June as people rush to sell their houses before the new rules come in.

But after June, believes Mr McCutcheon, delays in gaining the energy certificate, and the deterrent effect of needing to produce a HIP may actually cause a temporary shortage of property on the market - and lead to house prices rising dramatically, hitting buyers hard.

"Dacres is not against energy efficiency certificates being brought in, and is in favour of reforming the house buying process, but would like to see it introduced a better way.

"We would very much like to see the launch of HIPs deferred until all these issues are dealt with," said Mr McCutcheon.

A future concern is that the Government, in line with environmental politics, may eventually use the energy efficiency checks as a means of cracking down on households which use large amounts of power and do not have up-to-the-minute insulation. This, Mr McCutcheon warns, could penalise the sellers of older homes in particular, such as retired Ilkley residents who want to sell up and move to a smaller home.