Property trade bodies representing the estate agency, surveying, conveyancing and property management sectors have launched the latest version of the BASPI – the Buyer’s and Seller’s Property Information form.
The BASPI, developed by the upfront information working group of the Home Buying and Selling Group (HBSG), is a ‘single source of truth’ dataset, designed to include all the information required on a property when it is put on the market for sale.
TWO PARTS
Split into two parts, Part A covers the disclosure of material facts required by Regulations, while Part B includes additional information required for the legal process.
Part A asks for information regarding disputes and complaints; alterations and changes; notices; specialist issues; fixtures and fittings; utilities and services; insurance; boundaries; rights and informal arrangements and any other issues affecting the property. Part B covers legal ownership; legal boundaries; services crossing other property; energy; guarantees; warranties and indemnity insurances; occupiers; completion and moving.
This new version of the BASPI follows the annual review of the information undertaken via the HBSG Steering Group and co-ordinated by The Conveyancing Association.
Amendments to Part A cover a number of additional information requests such as freehold shares; details of any reserve fund and any annual contributions; whether the property is within the ULEZ area in London; how many storeys in the building and whether it includes any commercial property.
TITLE DEFECT
There are also specific new questions related to any title defect insurance policies on the property; if it is within an area of unrestricted mobile phone coverage; whether there are any air/water or ground source heat pumps; whether any known risk of coastal erosion affects the property or its boundary and if there is any step-free access from the street or throughout the property,
Beth Rudolf, Director of Delivery at The Conveyancing Association, says: “This is hugely important as it helps identify the material information relevant to the property that the seller is aware of.
“Of course, the title and authority information will need to be reviewed by the conveyancing firm as part of the due diligence process to identify the relevant information via the Local, Water, Mining (where relevant) and Environmental authorities.
“Our freely-available BASPI Schema allows all the amendments to this version of the BASPI to be seen on the webforms, while there is also a new pdf with form fields to enable those with accessibility issues, which also includes all the questions.”
The latest version of the BASPI can be found via the HBSG website HERE while the freely-available BASPI Schema can be found HERE.