NINE years after Labour committed itself to home information packs to combat gazumping and the breakdown of house-buying chains, a scaled-down version of the scheme is to be launched this week.

Homeowners in Newcastle upon Tyne will be offered free packs that shift the onus from the buyer to the seller to collate information on the property before it is sold.

Packs will include an energy performance certificate, a home condition report, evidence of title, guarantees for any work done and copies of planning consents.

John Rouse, 68, from South Shields, near Newcastle, will be one of the first to use the pack when he puts his two-bedroom house on the market tomorrow for about £170,000. “I think it’s a good idea,” he said.

Although Yvette Cooper, minister for housing and planning, maintains that the packs will be mandatory across England and Wales from June next year, others still hope to scupper them.

“It is a complete sham,” said Nick Salmon of Splinta, a campaign group that opposes the packs. “The take-up among estate agents has been extremely low.”

In July Cooper was forced to abandon a key element of the packs, announcing that the home condition report would no longer be compulsory. Pack providers hope the trials will help to reverse that decision.

Opposition politicians question the use of £4m of taxpayers’ money to subsidise the trial, which begins over the next fortnight. It will start in Newcastle and then spread to Northampton, Huddersfield, Southampton, Cambridge and Bath.

“Government money is being used not only to advertise, but also to subsidise the packs,” said Michael Gove, shadow minister for housing.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders calls the packs a “costly indulgence” and fears they might disrupt the property market. Although no price has been set, they are expected to cost between £650 and £1,000 when the scheme goes national.

Annual house price growth is running at about 8% and the London market has risen by 20% since January, spawning the return of speculators.

Baljit Chema, 32, bought a Victorian three-bed terrace house in Wimbledon for £475,000 in August and put it back on the market unaltered a month later. He accepted an offer for £548,000, netting £73,000 on a house he has never slept in.

“The plan was to move in,” said Chema. “But I realised I could make money by selling.”

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