If someone had told you at the start of 2016 that May and Hammond would be in charge of the country by mid-2016, many would have asked if the Top Gear presenters James and Richard had changed careers.

But in a week of shocking political shakeups we have seen Andrea Leadsom exit the leadership race, crowning Theresa May as Conservative Party leader and new Prime Minister.

One of her first appointments was to install Philip Hammond as chancellor, ending George Osborne’s turn.

Osborne will be remembered by the property market for reforming Stamp Duty Land Tax and introducing extra surcharges for landlords, but would could the new political leadership mean for the sector?

May has had little track record with housing and little known engagement with the property industry, although she was housing spokesperson from 1992 to 1994 during her time at the London Borough of Merton.

Her appointment as Prime Minister came on the same day she made a speech in Birmingham that did address housing in the context of giving people more opportunity. She said:  “It is why housing matters so much, and why we need to do far more to get more houses built.

“Because unless we deal with the housing deficit, we will see house prices keep on rising. Young people will find it even harder to afford their own home.

“The divide between those who inherit wealth and those who don’t will become more pronounced. And more and more of the country’s money will go into expensive housing instead of more productive investments that generate more economic growth.”

She has previously voted against banning lettings agent fees and as shadow leader of the House of Commons in 2007, was very much against the introduction of the ill-fated Home Information Packs.

Questioning Labour minister Jack Straw at the time in a June debate, she said: “Last month the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced that Home Information Packs would be delayed until August, and then would not be needed for all houses. Imagine the surprise, therefore, for readers of South West Property Magazine when they saw an advertisement saying that: ‘Every home put on the market now needs a Home Information Pack.’

“Who is the advert from? A confused estate agent? An uninformed property consultant? No; it comes from Her Majesty’s Government.

“Just when home owners thought that HIPs could not get any more confusing, the Secretary of State and the Minister for Housing and Planning have done it again—the Laurel and Hardy of the property market. May we have a statement on how much taxpayers’ money was wasted on those erroneous and misleading advertisements?”

Straw had no answer and said this would be investigated.

It is new Chancellor Hammond who is likely to have more of an impact on the sector and many will be watching the Autumn Statement to see any new taxes. He has in the past voted to cut corporation tax and opposed reducing VAT from 20% to the current 17.5%.

Of more interest are views he has previously expressed on the home buying process.

In a debate on the Homes Bill in 2001, which led to the introduction of Home Information Packs, Hammond, while an opposition minister, expressed his doubts about their success.

Hammond, who discloses on the register of interests that he is a beneficiary of a trust with a controlling stake in a property business called Castlemead, said expecting a seller’s pack in advance of a sale would add to a vendor’s costs and wouldn’t necessarily speed up the process.

He said: “Conveyancing delays are emphatically not the real or the main problem. The problems are chains and the mortgage arrangements that people have to make. Coupled with those arrangements is the very high gearing that people expect to employ when they borrow to buy a home.

“It means that a very small undervaluation can dramatically upset their plans and cause them to be unable to proceed.”

He warned that some of the information in seller’s packs could become out of date before a purchase completes, adding: “There is potential for a major reduction in liquidity in the market because sellers will not be able to dip their toe in the market on the principle that if there is no sale, there will be no fee. The Government’s assertion that surveys are a valuable contribution is based on an utterly inconclusive pilot, which had a small uptake, in a relatively affluent area.”

These views, although 15 years ago, are interesting as Osborne earlier this year had promised an as-yet unpublished call for evidence on speeding up the home buying process.

Many have predicted this could result in the ‘son of HIPs,’ so it will be interesting to see if Hammond makes a U-turn.