Commentary on Sections Part 5 - Home Information Packs Section 170: Right of private action
379.This section provides a right for potential buyers to take action against any responsible person who has not complied with the home information pack duty in section 156 to provide a copy of a prescribed document in response to a request.
380.If a potential buyer has not been given a copy of the pack in response to a request, he may commission his own version of a pack document and recover from the responsible person the reasonable costs of doing so. In order to recover costs in this way, the following conditions must be satisfied:
	The property is on the market, or the potential buyer and seller are in negotiations for the sale of the property.
	The potential buyer has not been provided with an authentic copy of the document. An authentic document is one which forms part of the most recent home information pack and complies with any regulations made under section 163 on content.
381.The potential buyer’s rights described in this section still apply if the request was for a home information pack or part of a pack, but did not specify the particular document sought.