News and General  31st March 2025

United Utilities CON29DW Delays

Official Water and Drainage Reports (CON29DW) from United Utilities are being returned much slower than usual. We have contacted United Utilities regarding this and they have apologised and advised the delays are due to staff shortages at the moment. 

ID Checks

Our iDWalllet.com database provider has informed us of a slow down in the return of data to our system. We would like to reassure our clients that all ID Checks are still working correctly.

UK Finance Lenders Handbook. This is 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 to provide the search. Please contact kath@legalbrokers.com if you would like this adding to you bundle. It's free of charge within bundles !  

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.

Dover District Council are due to go live with the LLC service on 23 April 2025. The last date an LLC1 search will be accepted will be close of play on Monday 7 April 2025. After this date, customers will need to hold any LLC1 search applications until after the local authority have gone live on the HM Land Registry Service. This may lead to a slight delay in returning personal searches

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 The Planning and Land Charges systems within the former Harrogate area are migrating to a new system which will eventually cover the whole Council area.  In order for all data to be transferred to this new system there will unfortunately be system downtime whilst our software suppliers migrate information onto the new system.   We will record all searches received before 5pm on Monday 31^st March 2025  . Any searches received after 5pm on 31^st March 2025 will not be recorded until 28^th April 2025. We should be able to start recording searches onto our new system from 28^th April 2025. From 28^th April 2025 we will be working with HM Land Registry to ensure that all new Land Charges Register entries from 14^th April onwards are recorded and transferring to HM Land Registry. Whilst we are working through the recording of requests and completing the checks required by HM Land Registry it may not be possible for us to start returning search results until 5^th May 2025.

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.

Poole Council are experiencing delays due to the migration of the Local Land Charges system and are currently expecting to take 3 weeks to return results.

Rochdale Council's online local planning system is not working; the issue has been raised with the council. We now have a solution to this and we are working to complete Local search reports.

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".  

South Kesteven District Council are due to go live with the LLC service on 23 April 2025. The last date an LLC1 search will be accepted will be close of play on Friday 11 April 2025. After this date, customers will need to hold any LLC1 search applications until after the local authority have gone live on the HM Land Registry Service.  

Stratford-On-Avon are experiencing 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.

Tameside Council Official Searches have reduced down to a 3-4 week turnaround.

Tewkesbury Borough Council are due to go live with the LLC service on 22 May 2025. The last date an LLC1 search will be accepted will be close of play on Wednesday 30 April 2025. After this date, customers will need to hold any LLC1 search applications until after the local authority have gone live on the HM Land Registry Service.

The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and they are due to go live with the LLC service on 25 April 2025. The last date an LLC1 search will be accepted will be close of play on Friday 11 April 2025. After this date, customers will need to hold any LLC1 search applications until after the local authority have gone live on the HM Land Registry Service.

Uttlesford District Council - due to go live with the LLC service on 23 April 2025. The last date an LLC1 search will be accepted will be 4pm on Monday 14 April 2025. After this date, customers will need to hold any LLC1 search applications until after the local authority have gone live on the HM Land Registry Service.

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