• What are Searches When Buying a House : Searches are investigations into various aspects of the property's location to identify any potential risks or issues before purchase.
• Types of Searches: There are nine main types of searches, including local authority, planning, drainage and water, environmental, flood risk, coal mining, chancel repair, land registry pre-completion, and high-speed rail (HS2) searches.
• Cost and Duration: The cost of searches varies depending on the local council, ranging from £10 to £250. Typically, searches take a few weeks to complete.
• Speeding Up Searches: Choose a conveyancing service that offers instant quotes and online case tracking to expedite the process.
• Necessity of Searches: While not legally required for cash purchases, searches are crucial for uncovering potential issues. They are mandatory for mortgage purchases to protect both the buyer and the lender.
• Understanding Results: Your solicitor is there to help you understand the results of the searches and guide you in making informed decisions about your property purchase.
When buying a home, one of the crucial steps in the conveyancing process is conducting 'searches'. Searches are essential checks carried out by your conveyancer or property solicitor to uncover any potential issues related to the property's location.
These could range from historical land use to future development plans that might affect your investment. While mandatory for mortgage purchases, even cash buyers should consider them to ensure a sound and informed investment.
In this post we’re going to break down all of the different kinds of searches that take place when buying a property, so you’re in the know the next time you are going through the conveyancing process.
Searches when buying a house are checks that are run on the location of your potential home by your conveying and property solicitor. The idea of these searches is to make sure that any issues that could impact your home such as things that have happened in the location historically, or such as new developments being planned are identified before you buy. You can learn more about what conveyancing is in our dedicated post.
Searches are left to the discretion of the buyer when it's a cash deal. Although they are always required when you pay via a mortgage as they provide vital information needed for your lender. However, whether searches are required by a lender or not, knowing as much as you can about the investment you are about to make is always a good idea.
In conveying 9 main types of searches need to be carried out before buying a property. These will be discussed in detail one by one below.
The first type of conveying search is known as LAS or a local authority search. This is a check that is run to discover any possible issues with your property concerning the railways, roads, pollution, building work as well as conservation work that may be done in the area of the property you are considering.
Planning searches look for details of any existing planning consents or planning applications within a 250-meter radius of a property.
A drainage and water search will locate all the drainage systems such as pipes and sewers around the area of a property, as well as check that it's properly connected to sewage and water supplies. This can help identify any that may impact the property negatively in the future and help you establish whether you will need to seek permission from a water company if you ever want to extend your home. Indeed, knowing about this before you buy a property can be very useful if you plan on extending.
Environmental searches are vital for those considering buying a property because they help safeguard their investment. They do this by checking for things such as what the land property was built on was originally used for, as well as if there is any risk of subsidence or flooding. What this means is you can check to see if any potential problems would make living in or selling the property at a later date difficult.
Environmental searches cover a 500-meter radius and are particularly important for banks who will often not grant mortgages before getting the results of these.
In recent times we have seen an uptick in the number of homes being decimated by flooding in the UK. That is why it's crucial to get a flood risk search done when you find a property you like. Properties located close to water bodies like lakes, reservoirs, and rivers will be especially vulnerable to flooding so potential buyers will need to make sure they get this check done before going ahead with the purchase.
The UK has a long history of mining for vital resources such as coal, salt and brine, and this means many tunnels crisscross the country. Unfortunately, if your home is built on or near one of these tunnels it can be more vulnerable to subsidence. That is why it's crucial to get a coal and mining search done before you buy a property you are interested in.
Did you know that some properties come with a legal responsibility to contribute towards church repairs? Not many people do, but this liability can leave you significantly out of pocket if it applies to a home you buy. The good news is that you can usually buy insurance that will cover this cost, so the sooner you find out you will be liable for chancel repair by running a search the sooner you can get insurance to properly cover it.
Imagine the complications and cost of buying a property from someone who did not legally own it! That is what running a land registry pre-completion search can prevent.
A land registry pre-completion search will check that the current owner legally owns the property they are selling and that the title register and title plan on the land registry are up to date. Usually, this search is run by your solicitor right before the final compilation, as this allows them to both check that everything is above board and the transfer property into your name.
Lastly, the new kid on the block of conveying searches is the high-speed rail or HS2 search. The UK has a high-speed rail network with trains travelling up to 225 mph planned, with the initial phase to be up and running by 2022. The HS2 search will identify whether the property you are considering will be impacted by the extension works happening mainly in the London, Birmingham and North West Areas.
You can see from the information above that running the right searches is crucial to ensure that the property you choose is right for you and that you protect your investment, but commissioning and understanding the right searches when buying a house can be quite complicated too! That is why you need the expertise of the UK’s leading conveyancing firm, Tilly Bailey & Irvine.
Here at Tilly Bailey & Irvine, we offer conveyancing services across the entire width and breadth of England and we pride ourselves on being the very best at what we do. Our dedicated team can help with all searches required during the conveyancing process. So no matter kind of property you’re looking to buy, contact our friendly experts today.
Now that we have answered the question of What are searches when buying a house, we can move on to solving some of the other queries that people have about conveying searches. One of the most frequently asked of these is how much searches cost.
The answer to this question is that the costs involved depend on how much the council in that location charges. Yes, that’s right not all councils charge the same so for some searches in some areas you could be looking at £250, while for others it will only be £10. The good news is that your conveyance will be able to give you a detailed breakdown of the cost of each search.
Typically searches take around a few weeks, although if you are lucky you can get the results in as little as 2 or 3 days. Much like how long the conveyancing process takes when buying a house, there are many factors and variables that can impact the total duration.
You can help speed up the time it takes to complete conveyancing searches in a few different ways.
1. Instruct your conveyancer before you make an offer on a house
2. Arrange your mortgage as soon as possible
3. Arrange your survey
4. Get your paperwork in order
5. Research building insurance in time for exchange of contracts
You can learn how to speed up the conveyancing process following our step by step guide.
Be sure that you choose a conveyancing service like Tilly Bailey & Irvine that offers free instant quotes, which allows you to begin as fast as possible.
We provide online case tracking that not only allows you to check the progress of your searches from your computer table, or smartphone but that makes the registration process fast and easy as well.
No, not if you are buying a home in a cash deal. In these cases, whether to do searches is left up to the individual and is not a legal obligation. However, as you can see from the information above, not running these searches leaves you vulnerable to a variety of issues and risks that could impact both your investment and your enjoyment of your property.
If you are buying a property with a mortgage from a lender like a bank or building society then legally you do have an obligation to run these checks. This is both for the benefit of the buyer and the lender as it helps to minimise any risk that the valuation of the property is wrong.
In addition to the searches that are described above, there are a few other checks that you may want to run, including:
The rights and regulations surrounding common land such as village greens differ from private lands. For example, certain types of development aren’t permitted on common land. To that end, it's a good idea to get your solicitor to run a commons search to establish whether your property borders common land or not.
Do not panic if you don’t understand the results of the conveyancing searches when you get them. This is precisely why we’re here to help. Our team will answer any questions you may have, and explain everything to you, so you’re comfortable with everything going on.
Our conveyancing solicitors are here to help you – no matter what your circumstances are. Please get in touch today to see how we can help you.
