Home Condition Reports (HCR) contained in Home Information Packs (Hips) will help mend house-buying chains that have fallen through, the Association of Home Information Pack Providers (AHIPP) has claimed.

When a sale falls through, a seller currently has to wait months for a new buyer to acquire local searches and surveys about the property, the association said.

AHIPP claims that with information about the condition of the property available upfront to the buyer through a HCR, this will no longer be the case and will reduce the time between an offer being accepted and completion.

Although originally planned as a compulsory part of Hips, to be introduced next year, HCRs were made non-compulsory by the government a few months ago after pressure from some estate agents, mortgage lenders and MPs.

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) withdrew its support from the Hips scheme after HCRs were made non-compulsory and believes that this means that Hips cannot be relied upon to fix house-buying chains.

NAEA's chief executive Peter King said that many estate agents were doubtful that sellers would pay the extra cost of HCRs, which in any case, would not prevent bad surveys.

Hips would not affect the biggest reason for house purchases falling through - people getting cold feet, he added.

"I really, really do not think that what is left of Hips will do an awful lot to prevent house sales falling through,"

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