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Last week the National Association of Estate Agents and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors called for search information to be ditched from home information packs.

But as a result of the introduction of Hips, the Association of Home Information Pack Providers said the cost of searches provided by local authorities has reduced by an average of £30 and the cost of personal searches has virtually halved.

The information in a search does not change over a 12-month period in 98 per cent of cases, Ahipp argued, and insurance, routinely used before Hips were introduced, is available for about £15.

Mike Ockenden, director general of Ahipp, pointed out it was not necessary for purchase conveyancers to re-order searches, but even if they did, the cost savings from the inclusion of searches in Hips far outweighed any additional cost.

In other words, Mr Ockenden claimed the inclusion of searches in Hips saves consumers money.

As regular readers will know, Mortgage Adviser loves a good poll. We are the only mortgage trade title to conduct a monthly reader survey to obtain your views on the shape of the market.

To give you a glimpse into life at Mortgage Adviser, I also like to regularly poll members of the team who have home loans about what they think about the market.

Perhaps because my father was a clerk of works and I spent my early years on building sites I must say I found it interesting to read about when a potential home was built and if anyone was planning to build a bypass next to it.

But in the current stagnating housing market Mortgage Adviser believes a solicitor could be considered negligent if they didn't do their own searches on a property.

If someone said you didn't need a back up parachute when jumping out of an airplane because in 98 per cent of cases a single device worked, you would look at them like they had lost their mind.

Ahipp also argued research by Connells, the second largest estate agent, showed properties sold with a Hip reached exchange of contracts 12 days sooner than those without.

This is a result of having search information available earlier in the process, enabling the conveyancer to get on with his job as soon as he is instructed, Ahipp claimed.

Hips do mean there is less chance of the nasty shock of something being built next to your dream abode but ultimately they do not save you from the greatest and costliest heartbreak, a flaw being uncovered by a surveyor.

Mr Ockenden said the comments made by the NAEA and Rics were yet another attempt to play the "current market conditions" card to derail Hips.

The inclusion of search information in Hips allows potential buyers to be much better informed before they make an offer thus reducing the chance of transaction failure, he said.

This is a valid point but if you ask me what has really derailed Hips as a product is the fact they do not contain all the information required to make a purchase and even if they did contain a survey a lender might not recognise this.

Emma Ann Hughes is editor of Mortgage Adviser