To show you what I mean lets try Primelocation. Go to www.primelocation.com and let’s do a search for a 2 bed flat in NI (Islington) for a 2 bed flat in the price range from £750,000 to £850,000. Don’t enter any keywords. I have just done this and it returned me nine properties from six estate agents.

;A useful facility you might think is the ability a web portal has to contact all the estate agents that may be relavent to your search both now and in the future. However when you go to fill in your specific requirements in the Contact Estate Agents box at the bottom of the page only agents with properties that feature in your results are contacted. The Site excludes the vast majority who may have property available in the coming days and weeks. Not very clever!

I wonder what their fee paying estate agency members would say if a single one of them twigged this? There are at least twenty that I would be in daily contact with if I had a client looking in the area (which I currently do) and thats without even bothering the agents in NW1 and NW7 who cover some of the area too! So what should you do?

The answer is simple. Go back to the price box and drop the minimum price to £20,000 and the upper price to £15M plus. The contact box miraculously fills with another 64 potentially relevant estate agents and with a click of your fingers you can wing a detailed and well written e-mail (more on how to write one in a future blog) to seventy estate agents with your enquiry.

A great way to start a search seriously.

HIPS contain:

Freehold properties

- Home Information Pack Index&

- The new Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ), from 6 April 2009

- Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) or Predicted Energy Assessment (PEA)

- Sustainability information (required for newly built homes)

- Sale statement

- Evidence of title

- Standard searches (local authority and drainage and water)

Leasehold properties

- all the compulsory documents above, plus

- a copy of the lease

If you are buying or selling a property a HIP must be available on the first day of marketing. So if the HIP isn’t in place and you tell a friend who may be interested in buying your property that it is on the market you may be liable to pay a fine of up to £200 – if your estate agent does so, they can be fined up to £500 (and another £200 for every day in breach). The latter can face a banning order under the Estate Agents Act as well.

Far be it from me to suggest that perhaps an agent may feel more likely to share information about a potential new instruction with a professional home finder but perhaps that may be the truth.