What searches do solicitors do when buying a house?

The searches on a standard purchase in England and Wales

Buying a home takes about 5 months on average, and arranging and paying for searches sits on the buyer’s own task list. The solicitor orders them, the buyer funds them.

Search	What it looks for
Local authority, LLC1 and CON29	Local land charges, planning decisions, proposed road building, rights of way
Drainage and water, CON29DW	Water and sewerage services to the property
Environmental	Contaminated land, and who carries the cost of it
Coal mining, CON29M	Mine entries within 20 metres, gas emissions, future mining plans
Priority search, OS1	Anything entered against the title before completion
Land charges, K15	Bankruptcy and other entries against the parties’ names

The first four describe the property. The last two are timing devices, and each carries its own statutory protection.

The local authority search, LLC1 and CON29

The LLC1 half is an official search of the local land charges register under section 9 of the Local Land Charges Act 1975, which the registering authority must carry out and certify. A local land charge binds successive owners of the land, which is why it survives a sale.

Typical entries are planning conditions, tree preservation orders, conservation areas, listed buildings and environmental health notices. Responsibility for these registers moved from councils to HM Land Registry under the Infrastructure Act 2015, and not all council data has migrated yet.

The search has a gap. It reveals a charge only if that charge has been registered, and the property is bound by it either way.

The CON29 half is a set of enquiries of the council. The 2016 form asks for information the authority holds that could affect the future use or development of the property or impose a financial burden, and CON29O adds optional enquiries such as completion notices and noise abatement notices.

Why the CON29 fee differs between councils

The CON29 charge is set council by council, and the difference is cost recovery rather than pricing. Regulation 8 of the Local Authorities (England) (Charges for Property Searches) Regulations 2008 lets an authority charge at its discretion but requires it to have regard to the cost of answering the enquiries.

Regulation 6 fixes the arithmetic, dividing estimated annual costs by the estimated number of requests, with income not exceeding cost across any three consecutive financial years. Under regulation 9 each authority publishes those estimates, next year’s proposed unit charge, and its income from property enquiries by 30 June after the year end.

Drainage, environmental and coal mining searches

Drainage and water. The CON29DW residential form dates from 2016 and sets out the water and sewerage position for the property.

Environmental. This one exists because of section 78F of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which extends to England, Wales and Scotland. Whoever caused or knowingly permitted contamination is the appropriate person for remediation, and where no such person is found after reasonable inquiry, the owner or occupier for the time being is.

Coal mining. A CON29M report covers mine entries within 20 metres of the boundaries, gas emissions, other hazards reported in the area and plans for future mining. The initial check is free and reports start at £27 plus VAT, usually arriving within 24 to 48 hours. The records sit with the Mining Remediation Authority and cover England, Scotland and Wales.

Search fees set by HM Land Registry

These are statutory, identical at every firm, and not subject to VAT. The OS1, OC1 and index map fees come from the Land Registration Fee Order 2024, in effect since 9 December 2024. The £15 local land charges fee is set by separate rules, made for England in 2018 and Wales in 2021.

Item	Form	Portal	By post
Official search of the local land charges register	Section 9(1) certificate	£15	Not available
Official search of whole with priority	OS1	£7	£11
Official copy of the register or title plan	OC1	£7	£11
Official search of the index map	SIM	£8	£8
Official search of the land charges register, per name	K15 and K16	£6	£7

Land charges searches are charged per name, so a couple buying together pay twice. The CON29 charge and the drainage, water and environmental reports are priced by the bodies that produce them, and that is the part of the bill that moves.

The 30 working day priority search and the 15 day land charges window

The priority search and the land charges search run close to completion rather than at the start, because each buys a window. Under rule 131 of the Land Registration Rules 2003 the period begins when the application is entered on the day list and ends at midnight at the end of the thirtieth working day. An application lodged inside that window beats anything entered meanwhile, because section 29 of the Land Registration Act 2002 postpones an interest whose priority is not protected at registration.

The land charges search runs on a shorter clock. Its certificate is conclusive in favour of a purchaser under section 10(4) of the Land Charges Act 1972, and an entry made after the certificate date does not affect a purchaser who completes within 15 days of it, counting only days the registry is open.

HM Land Registry’s Information Services handles about 1.7 million requests a month, 92.5% of them in 1 day, while registration after completion is one reason conveyancing runs to months rather than weeks.

Compensation when an official search misses a charge

Under section 10 of the Local Land Charges Act 1975, where a material official search was made and a charge existed at the time but was not shown by the certificate as registered, whether or not it had been registered, the purchaser is entitled to compensation for any loss suffered as a result, including expenditure reasonably incurred in obtaining it.

A free personal search carries a narrower right, covering only a charge that existed and was never registered. The official certificate also reaches a charge that was registered and then left off it, which is the difference the £15 buys.

The free checks a buyer can run before instructing anyone

Check	Who publishes it	What it gives
Long term flood risk service	GOV.UK, England only	Risk from rivers and the sea, surface water, reservoirs and groundwater
Radon potential map	UKHSA and the British Geological Survey	Radon potential for England, Wales and Scotland, refreshed 2 December 2022
Local land charges service	HM Land Registry	Registered entries where the council’s data has migrated, free, £15 for the certificate
Property summary and title register	HM Land Registry	Ownership summary free, title register or plan £7 to download

Each has a boundary. The flood service does not say how likely an individual property is to flood, and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own. The radon map covers Great Britain only, and the Northern Ireland version was last updated in 2015. A downloaded title register is not proof of ownership, which is the job of the £11 official copy by post.

Comparing search costs under the SRA transparency rules

A firm regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority that does residential conveyancing has to publish its costs. The transparency rules require each likely disbursement named with its cost, or an average or range where the cost is unknown, whether VAT applies, and the key stages with timescales.

A published page is the version a firm is held to, so it beats a phone estimate for comparing what a conveyancing quote contains, and it is the page checked before naming the conveyancing pick on a city list such as the Birmingham list.

Property searches in Scotland

Scotland runs a different set through different bodies. The Scottish Government’s list covers local authority certificates, Property Enquiry Certificates, advance notices, legal reports and plans reports, plus searches in the Personal and Land Register, the Register of Charges and the Company File. A Property Enquiry Certificate is normally expected to be dated no more than three months before settlement.

The advance notice does the job of the English priority search. Created by section 58 of the Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act 2012, it has effect for 35 days beginning the day after entry in the application record, and that protected period guards against an inhibition registered against the granter and against a competing deed registering first. It runs in calendar days, cannot be extended, and costs £20 to enter.

Survey work moves to the seller. A Home Report of a single survey and valuation, a property questionnaire covering 16 categories and an energy report must reach an interested buyer within nine days of being asked. Plans reports for a first registration cost £110 plus VAT basic and £160 plus VAT standard.

The vocabulary changes with the law. Concluded missives replace exchange, the deed is a disposition, the mortgage is a standard security, and completion is settlement on the date of entry. The regulator is the Law Society of Scotland, with service complaints going to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. Land and Buildings Transaction Tax replaces stamp duty, its return due before the end of 30 days after the effective date, against 14 days for Stamp Duty Land Tax.

Property certificates in Northern Ireland

Title sits across three registries held by Land & Property Services. Land Registry is map based, guarantees legal title and gives each title a Folio Number. The Registry of Deeds holds documents for unregistered land and guarantees neither their validity nor their effect. The Statutory Charges Register holds restrictions created by or in favour of government departments or councils.

The local search equivalent is the regional property certificate, £88 for a single property, being £73.33 plus VAT, plus £8.40 per additional property to a ceiling of 30 properties or £331.60. The Regional Property Certificates Unit in Fermanagh and Omagh District Council issues it for every council except Mid Ulster, gathering replies from council planning offices, DfI Roads, NI Water and the NI Environment Agency. It covers planning history, road maintenance and proposed road works, whether a public water main serves the property, and whether the sewers are NI Water’s or the property is on a septic tank. Applications from before 1973 do not appear, and building regulations, licensing and environmental health need a separate council certificate.

Who orders what is reversed here. The seller’s solicitor prepares the title pack and orders the certificates and searches, and the buyer’s solicitor reviews them, raises enquiries and registers the title afterwards. The Law Society of Northern Ireland requires a fee estimate in writing in a set format, so two estimates compare like for like. Stamp Duty Land Tax applies as in England, so the 14 day filing deadline holds, and the Mining Remediation Authority’s coal records cover England, Scotland and Wales rather than Northern Ireland.