The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) does not expect the suspension of the Home information Pack (HIP) to have anything more than a moderate effect on the housing market.

In its latest ‘News & Views’ newsletter, the lender body says the scrapping HIPs will deliver a modest reduction in the upfront costs of marketing a property, but will do nothing to address the bigger problems.

It said: “The current malfunctioning of housing and mortgage markets has its root causes in the credit crunch. Support from the Bank of England has mitigated some of the effects of the financial crisis