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Buying a house/local authority search

Hawkings Boots said:
Why is the sellers solicitor saying how long the searches will take when it's your solicitor who will be doing them?
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They were just giving general guidance on how long it’ll take. I assume they have experience with previous clients.
Horrendous if true. We are paying our solicitor for the searches but little he can do if the relevant departments are over worked.
Speaking to him tomorrow to ask his advice
 

billybobmackem2312 said:
They were just giving general guidance on how long it’ll take. I assume they have experience with previous clients.
Horrendous if true. We are paying our solicitor for the searches but little he can do if the relevant departments are over worked.
Speaking to him tomorrow to ask his advice
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Sure I had one with Northumberland a couple of months ago and it was no more than a month
 
First time buyer buying a new build but I completed within 5 weeks of setting eyes on the place recently and bang on target that was set with advisor/solicitor/seller, was touch and go last few days as the bank had forgot to do a form along with the mortgage agreement but no delays with searches etc and got in on time
 
Goat Eyes said:
Still got to study the plans and make a report.

Like I say, Cow does this for a living. Assuming he covers the searches you’re referring to.
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It doesn't take long to actually do the report. Most of the searches are on GIS databases
 
MackemLass said:
Hopefully not much difference.

The house we are buying is empty so as soon as we get the go ahead we can move.
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Good stuff, hope it goes well. Keep me updated if you can, is it in the north east aye? Mines in Northumberland so wondering if it’s council dependant perhaps.
Ours is empty also but got about 3/4 months worth of renovations to do.
 
billybobmackem2312 said:
Good stuff, hope it goes well. Keep me updated if you can, is it in the north east aye? Mines in Northumberland so wondering if it’s council dependant perhaps.
Ours is empty also but got about 3/4 months worth of renovations to do.
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Yeah we are North East.

Thankfully there's nothing to do to ours (other than personal preference cosmetics) which I'm grateful for.

It may be the councils that cause the delays im under STMBC who aren't the best but 🤞 they prove me wrong on this one.

Once we hear anything I'll let you know.

Good Luck.
 
billybobmackem2312 said:
Haway the @Cow
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20 weeks is excessive until you mentioned Northumberland. Drainage, coal, environmental are all back within a day or three. Northumberland still have a load of paper records (as do a lot of local authorities) and have traditionally been slow. Which part of Northumberland are you buying in? Tbh, it sounds like your solicitor is possibly blaming searches for their own slow process. Do you know if they are carrying out official or Personal local authority searches? There's a big time difference for the same information, Personal Searches are a hell of a lot quicker and cheaper.

I only do Personal Drainage searches these days and will be going to NWL later today, if you want me to have a look at the property from a Drainage perspective drop me a pm.
MagicRat said:
We deal with land registry and they’re responding pretty quickly at the minute.
I think the environmental info can take time as there’s various sources to search; local councils, environment agency, coal authority, Northumbrian water etc.
20 weeks seems insanely long like
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As I mentioned above, environmental searches and coal searches are pretty much instantaneous from the search providers perspective. Official Drainage searches should take a maximum of 5 days for the provider to turn around (I do mine normally within 24-48hrs of receiving the order). 9 times out 10 its not the searches that hold up a house sale, its the solicitor dragging their feet ordering the searches, search providers just get blamed a lot.
pillars of hercules said:
It doesn't take long to actually do the report. Most of the searches are on GIS databases
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Not strictly true matey, Drainage searches yes, local authority searches no. To compile a local authority report you have to go to several different departments, Land Charges, Hghways, Planning, etc...a lot of authorities have some stuff online but not everything. It really is archaic, you'd be surprised.
@MackemLass @billybobmackem2312 do you know who your solicitors are/have used for search provision? I maybe able to shed some light on how long they actually take.
 
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Not a clue who he’s going to use for the searches but he’s the family solicitor so trust him wholeheartedly.
Can’t start the searches until the sellers solicitor sends the contracts next week. It seems like they are the ones who are massively dragging their heels.
 
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billybobmackem2312 said:
Not a clue who he’s going to use for the searches but he’s the family solicitor so trust him wholeheartedly.
Can’t start the searches until the sellers solicitor sends the contracts next week. It seems like they are the ones who are massively dragging their heels.
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Don’t think you need to wait to do searches mind. Contract is the last thing they do after everything else. I would assume he has a conveyancer in his practice.
 
MackemLass said:
I'm not sure who our solicitors are using for searches. We are going through Richard Reed but I have to be honest, our mortgage advisor/broker has been fab and she's just done everything for us.
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Ah, RR, if I remember correctly they use a national search provider who turn searches around quite quickly. It’s not very often searches delay the conveyance process these days.
 
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