Anyone experienced long delays with their Local search results for solicitor? PLEASE!

mini_moneysaver

im not sure which area you are buying but i live in the north east and there was a 5-6 week wait at recently in the County Durham area for searches which i experienced and was told was due to the issues of the old district councils merging into one unitary authority, the usual problems with 4-5 different systems trying to be brought together etc! not sure if your area could have similar issues.

goldengirl28

quick update, mine were at solicitors when i went today........all sorted 3 days delay

9wizard9

It's worth checking with the Local Authority who may be doing the searches. My HIP on my previous property took about 7 weeks to get the local searches back (personal search agency carrying them out). I chased loads, and emailed the head of the Local Authority search dept, who let me know they were turning them around in two days. Turned out (after much complaining to the HIP provider) that the personal search agency that they were using had a huge backlog. I mailed the boss of the HIP provider emphasising that this backlog was their problem given they were subcontracting the search, and got results back in a couple more days.

timmyt

yes our Council is taking 4 weeks. bring back HIPs. obvious this would happen. no lawyer worth their salt is doing a personal search anymore, so official searches are in high demand so that 4 weeks may get worse

and buyers are now having to pay for the local search all of a sudden

kford224

I know this forum is quite old, but I thought I would add an update in case anyone else finds it helpful!

The Local Search is the one thing that has been holding us up for over a week now and we have been waiting for the results for around three weeks in total.

I finally emailed the local Council to see what stage it was at, and they confirmed they had only provided the information today but if they had known it was urgent (i.e. we were waiting on them) then they would have done it a lot sooner! :wall:

I didn't realise until their email that the search was done by an agency, I always thought the Council sent the information and the solicitors just checked it and gave it a tick in the box!! (Ignorant FTB! )

Anyway, I told the solicitors this and they said that they should be able to get it sorted today or tomorrow, so at least that turnaround is quick! Now we can look to exchange

Funkygibbon

Council got the search request on monday. Chased them up today. They are still waiting on other departments to answer some questions. We had hoped that it would be turned around in a day as we know two people that work in the land charges department but I guess you can't quicken up the council!!!

kford224

Funkygibbon wrote: »

Council got the search request on monday. Chased them up today. They are still waiting on other departments to answer some questions. We had hoped that it would be turned around in a day as we know two people that work in the land charges department but I guess you can't quicken up the council!!!

Unfortunately not!! Hopefully you'll hear back soon, it can't be too much longer now!

tyler80

When I used to work in a council department doing local searches we often used to get people phoning us up demanding why their searches hadn't been done and we'd often have to tell them that their solicitor hadn't requested them yet/only requested them that day :-D