Sellers must provide £1,000 info pack

The government will press ahead with controversial plans to make homeowners spend up to £1,000 to provide buyers with information about their property, it emerged today.

Despite repeated warnings from MPs and property market experts, the proposals, which will force sellers to compile an information pack before marketing their home, will be outlined in the Queen's Speech on 26 November. Sellers who fail to provide buyers with a pack will face stiff fines.

The plans failed to become law when they were first aired more than six years ago because of a lack of parliamentary time. But the Select Committee for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister recently called for more trials on the idea. A spokesman said it hoped the packs would reduce gazumping by halving the average time it takes to buy a house from 10 weeks to five.

Critics, however, have slammed the idea, claiming that it will only increase the amount of red tape and expense for homeowners, rather than speed up sales.

Michael Chambers, director of policy at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), said it would be a "tall order" for the Government to introduce the packs before 2006 because of the need for training.

"Another major problem would be enforcement," he said.

The only people who could enforce breaches would be trading standards officers, and they are already overworked."

The packs, which are currently used Denmark, were a commitment in Labour's manifesto in 1997 and 2001.