These are standard enquiries which the buyer’s legal adviser makes of
the District or County Council to check all facts concerning the property, the
services, and local authority plans for the area. A search fee is payable and
when the market is busy, the searches may take a little while to come through.
In such circumstances, a seller would be advised to get his own conveyancer to
lodge these enquiries initially and then to pass them over to the purchaser’s
legal adviser when the time comes.
Searches may on occasion be undertaken
personally, which can be very much quicker – though the Local Authority
do not then warrant the replies – or a contract may be exchanged subject
to satisfactory outcome of the searches.
Increasingly, Councils are installing information technology which
will allow searches to be automated. This is an important aspect of the National
Land Information Service initiative currently being pioneered in the Bristol area.
When
Home Information Packs are introduced – probably by the end of the first
decade – the standard searches and replies will be included. Once the information
is available electronically on-line the potential delays should cease to be a
problem though there is no likelihood that the data will be free of charge. For
many busy Local Authorities the search fees are a useful source of additional
income.
