Why Are My Searches Taking So Long? What Home Buyers Can Do

Searches are one of the first things your solicitor orders, and often the last thing they are waiting for before they can report to you. While you are waiting for searches to come back, the rest of the purchase usually waits with them.

Most delays have an explanation, and some have a fix. This guide explains how long searches normally take, why local authority searches in particular can take so long, and what you and your solicitor can do about it.

How long do searches take to come back?

A standard set of searches has three parts, the local authority, drainage and water, and environmental searches, and they move at different speeds:

• Drainage and water and environmental searches are compiled from digital records by specialist providers, and usually come back within a few days.
• The local authority search depends on the council. Some return it within a few days, others take several weeks, and the time can change from month to month.

So when your searches are delayed, it is almost always the local authority search you are waiting for. Your solicitor or their search provider can tell you what is normal for your council at the moment. For what each search covers, see why property searches matter.

Why are local authority searches taking so long?

A local authority search answers questions about the property's planning history, building control, roads, enforcement and more, drawn from several council departments. The common causes of delay are:

• The council's workload. Search teams are often small and deal with requests in turn, so a backlog or a staff shortage adds weeks.
• Records that are not digitised. Older planning and building control records may be on paper or microfiche, and each one has to be found and checked by hand.
• Several departments answering. Planning, building control and highways may each have to reply before the search is complete.
• A problem with the order. A wrong address, a new build that does not have a postal address yet, or a missing plan can send the search back to the start.
• The search has not been ordered yet. Most solicitors order searches once you have paid for them, and some wait until other checks are done.

None of these say anything about the property itself. A slow search is not a sign that something is wrong.

How to speed up your searches

You cannot make a council work faster, but you can make sure nothing on your side is slowing things down, and ask your solicitor about the alternatives.

1. Pay for your searches promptly, and ask your solicitor for the date they were ordered and the date they are expected back.
2. Ask whether a regulated search would be quicker. A regulated search is compiled by an independent search agent from the same council records, and answers the same questions. It is usually faster than the council's own official search, though it still depends on how quickly the council provides its information, and most lenders accept one. See regulated or official: which local search should you order?
3. Ask about search delay indemnity if the search is still weeks away and the rest of the purchase is ready.
4. Keep everything else moving. Your mortgage offer, your survey and the solicitors' enquiries can all progress while the search is outstanding, so it does not hold up the whole purchase.

Search delay indemnity: what it does and does not do

Search delay indemnity, sometimes called no search indemnity, is a one-off insurance policy taken out instead of waiting for a search. If something the search would have revealed, such as a planned road scheme or an enforcement notice, later reduces the property's value, the policy covers that loss.

It is useful when a search is weeks away and everything else is ready, but it has limits:

• It tells you nothing about the property. You go ahead without knowing what the search would have shown.
• Your lender has to accept it. Each lender says whether it does in its part of the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders' Handbook, and your solicitor will check.
• It is not available if you already know about a problem that the search would cover.

Your solicitor will tell you whether it suits your purchase.

What not to do

• Do not chase the council yourself. The council deals with the search provider that placed the order, not with buyers, so a call from you will not usually move the search up the queue.
• Do not order a second set of searches without asking your solicitor. Your solicitor has to be able to rely on the searches, and your lender has to accept them. Ask whether a faster search is available instead.

Other things that hold up a purchase

If your searches are back and the purchase is still stuck, the delay is usually somewhere else:

• Enquiries. Your solicitor raises questions about the property and waits for the seller's solicitor to answer them.
• Missing documents, such as a building regulations certificate or proof that planning conditions were discharged. See missing building regulations certificate? What buyers can do.
• Your mortgage offer, and the lender's own checks.
• The chain, when a sale or purchase further along is not ready.

How Casera can help

Casera provides property searches, and the services around them, to solicitors and conveyancers. If your purchase is waiting on searches, we can help your solicitor with:

• Regulated local authority searches. We aim to return a search within a day of the council's information arriving, and can tell your solicitor the council's current turnaround before they order. See property searches.
• Indemnity policies from Stewart Title, on the same case as the searches, where your solicitor decides a policy is the right route. See legal indemnity insurance.
• Document retrieval, when a search points to a document no one can find. See document retrieval.

We work through your solicitor, not around them. If your purchase is held up, tell us what is outstanding and who your solicitor is, and our search team will get in touch with them.