Searches

What do conveyancing searches actually check?

Searches are the enquiries your solicitor sends out about the property and the area around it, not an inspection of the building itself. Here's what each one actually checks, what they cost, and why they usually set the pace of your whole transaction.

Timing

Why searches usually set the pace of your purchase.

Searches are ordered early, as soon as we have enough information about the property, but how long they take to come back is largely outside anyone's control. Some local authorities return results within a few working days; others, particularly busier councils processing a high volume of requests, can take several weeks for the same search. Because so much of the rest of the transaction, including exchange, waits on those results, search turnaround is usually the single biggest variable in how long a purchase actually takes from start to finish.

There's little to be done to speed up a slow local authority directly, but ordering searches promptly, choosing insured alternatives where appropriate, and chasing outstanding results are all part of what a conveyancer does to keep things moving.

If Something's Flagged

A flagged search doesn't automatically end the deal.

It's common for a search to come back with something on it – an old planning condition, an unadopted stretch of road, a drain that crosses into next door's garden. None of that means the purchase falls through. Your solicitor's job is to work out what it actually means for you, then raise it as a formal enquiry with the seller's solicitor, the local authority, or whoever holds the answer.

Depending on what's found, that enquiry might end with a straightforward explanation that puts your mind at rest, a request for indemnity insurance to cover a specific risk, or a renegotiation of price or terms before you commit. What matters is that it's dealt with properly rather than missed, which is the whole point of running the searches in the first place.