News and General  25th February 2025

UK Finance Lenders Handbook. Today we have been asked to add this search to our suite of recommended products. It will be available as a stand alone search and an item which can be added to existing bundles. On our order page we will need to know the mortgage lenders name. All being well this will go live by the 24th Feb. Please contact kath@legalbrokers.com if you have any questions or suggestions.  

Personal Searches;

Completed Personal Searches are a combination of data obtained from different Council departments, specifically; Building, Highways, Land Charges and Planning. Some data is available online, other information needs sending to us by the Council, and in certain situations we need to visit the Council's offices to retrieve the data we need.... and Councils can make search agents wait for available appointment slots. ie. all search firms are in the same boat (so to speak). 

Official Search Prices;

Please contact us to double check pricing. There are around 350 Local Authorities in England and Wales, each with different fees for CON29R, LLC and the 19 CON29O optional questions. Very few of these Local Authorities notify us prior to increasing their fees.

The current average turnaround times (over the past 90 days) for Personal Local Searches is 15 working days. Please note, this can vary depending on individual Local Authorities and their ability to return the data we need. Details of councils where we're experiencing delays are listed below:

Council News. 

Braintree Council are experiencing delays in returning Personal and Official Local Searches due to staff shortages.

Cannock Chase Council have increased their turn around time to 35 working days.

Colchester Council are experiencing delays following the scheduled essential maintenance on their systems. We can offer search delay and no search indemnities; to discuss these options please contact Emily at indemnities@legalbrokers.com for further information.

Daventry Council are experiencing a huge back log with local searches and are advising an approximate 30 working day turnaround time.

East Staffordshire have increased to a 45 working day turnaround time for Personal and Official Local Searches due to experiencing issues beyond their control. They are advising chases only be sent after this time has passed. 

Epsom and Ewell have increased their turnaround time for Official Searches to 15 working days.

Hackney are not accepting "full" Local Search requests at present. There is still the option of a Partial Search, to discuss this further email kath@legalbrokers.com. Alternatively, we  can offer a Search Delay Indemnity Policy for £30 plus IPT, please contact indemnities@legalbrokers.com for further information.

Harrogate Council We recently received information from Harrogate Council regarding a new arrangement for requesting and receiving Building Control information. Now that all the North Yorkshire Councils have merged into one, they are currently working on a new combined operational system which includes a change to the system Harrogate Council uses for their Planning and Building Control services.

As a result of this, requests for Building Control from Harrogate Council will now need to be emailed to the Council and they will provide the results by a return email, however, their timescales to reply with the results have increased significantly to 20 working days under the EIR arrangement

Lancaster City Council are currently working with HMLR to migatre their data to the central Land Charges register. Searches are therefore being delayed and the council are unable to confirm an accurate response timeframe. 

LB of Camden are currently working with HMLR to move their data to the central register, this has resulted in delays of up to 8 weeks in returning ALL searches.

LB of Hounslow has a new building control system which has not ported the data from their old database correctly. Searches cannot be complete until the fixes on the new database have been completed. At present, they are not able to advise when this might be. We can offer search delay and no search indemnities; to discuss these options please contact Emily via indemnities@legalbrokers.com for further information.

LB or Richmond upon Thames have issued the following statement; "Local land charges system changes - We are upgrading our system, and some services will be unavailable whilst we complete the work. From mid until end of January you will be unable to request a local land charges search. We will not be processing any requests during this period. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. More details will be posted shortly."

Turn around times for both Local and Official Searches are likely to be heaviy impacted during both the system downtime and while the council clear the resulting backlog. 

Manchester have returned to normal service. They cannot promise anything under the standard 20 working day EIR turnaround, but the majority of search requests are being returned within 15 working days.

Oldham Council have resolved software issues they were experiencing, and we are currently finding they are returning information earlier than expected. However, we are expecting their turnaround time to increase due to their upcoming migration to the Land Registry. We will continue to monitor the situation.

Rochdale Council's online local planning system is not working; the issue has been raised with the council. Local search reports will be completed once their system is back up and running.

Stevenage Council Local Land Charges Team will be understaffed from 19th to 31st March and have provided the following update; "During this period it is possible that searches will not be accepted or completed".  

Stratford-On-Avon are expreriencing delays in returning Official Local searches due to a technical issue in the Highways Department.

Stoke-on-Trent have reduced their return time for Official Searches from 35 working days down to 20 working days

St Albans are experiencing delays of up to 25 days in returning Personal Searches.

Sunderland Council have advised that, due to circumstances beyond their control, they are unable to return any personal searches results week commencing 8th July

Tameside Council Official Searches are currently taking 5-6 weeks to be returned. 

Test Valley are currently quoting 30 working day turnaround time for all searches and that they are currently working through a backlog.

Tonbridge and Malling are experiencing delays returning Local searches due to recent annual leave within the Land Charges Department.

Walsall Council are gradually speeding up and turn around time has reduced from 40 working days to 30 working days.

New Builds. In some circumstances the development and properties will be registered with the Land Registry (which is where our data comes from) and the site will be able to identify each property. If the Land Registry hasn't got the data we'll need a Plot plan, Location plan, and Development plan. ie. we need to find the property with reference to existing roads and infrastructure. 

In some circumstances it may be quicker to order an Official Search rather than a Personal Search. Officials are generally more expensive, but the Council may offer a faster turnaround time. Please email kath@legalbrokers.com if you have an urgent search requirement.

We understand that there are unfortunately times that searches have to be cancelled. To make sure your request is received and dealt with promptly, please send all cancellation requests and queries to searches@legalbrokers.com as this email is monitored daily by all members of staff.

Kind Regards

Stacey Armitage

Searches Department

Tel: 0345 603 0708