Searches - what are they meant to reveal?

Milky_Mocha

Hi there.

What are the 'searches' meant to tell you? My solicitor informed me that searches came back 'clear'. However a google search I did revealed a document outlining a range of planning permission requests for the immediate area in which our prospective house is located. Some of those permissions had been approved. This has caused me some concern because one of the reasons I'm buying in that location is that it has a reasonable amount of green which is rare for a location this close to London.

Also when we viewed another house in the same location the house owner stressed that this was 'memorial land' and would NEVER be built on hence unoverlooked gardens, etc. Of course I didn't take her word for it but this document has alarmed me somewhat. Besides the reason this area is at least £20k dearer than identical houses 2 miles away is that those ones have less land around them.

I'm just surprised as to how and why a 'search' didn't pick this up.

lianne1978

Hi, I don't know if this will be of any help. I've dug out all our past documentation (we are currently selling our house) from when we bought it in October 2003 and this was what the solicitor put on the covering letter relating to all the searches.....

"......the property falls within a smoke control area and is within ******* conservation area ....... there are no unusual road, planning or clearance proposals apart from the provision of traffic calming....."

Basically it indicated there were no planning proposals that were considered of importance. I assume that unless the green area you refer to is 'green belt' then this would fall under the area of usual?

HTH

seven-day-weekend

Unless requested otherwise (and paid for extra), the Planning search will reveal planning applications made on the property you are buying, not adjoining or adjacent land/property.

silvercar

our search results showed a planning application for the house next door.

Milky_Mocha

lianne1978 wrote:

Hi, I don't know if this will be of any help. I've dug out all our past documentation (we are currently selling our house) from when we bought it in October 2003 and this was what the solicitor put on the covering letter relating to all the searches.....

"......the property falls within a smoke control area and is within ******* conservation area ....... there are no unusual road, planning or clearance proposals apart from the provision of traffic calming....."

Basically it indicated there were no planning proposals that were considered of importance. I assume that unless the green area you refer to is 'green belt' then this would fall under the area of usual?

HTH

These are all very helpful replies. I wanted to have some idea before asking my solicitor. I forwarded the document I found to him. He said he would take a closer look and get back to me so I assume he believes it to be potentially significant.

I do recall the document mentioning that some of that land is green belt and some of it is land relating to memorials of past heroes (soldiers). If I could find a similar document for another area I could compare because the list of permission requests referred to was 3 pages long with about half a page being permissions granted.

Thank you again. I will let you know my solicitor's response.

Richard_Webster

The idea that a local authority search will reveal information about development proposals in the locality rather than those purely relating to the property searched against is so common - hence your post - that I am rather surprised that your solicitor did not go out of his way to point out what the search would NOT COVER!

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients.

seven-day-weekend

silvercar wrote:

our search results showed a planning application for the house next door.

Sometimes the boundaries are not entirely accurate and so the search will pick up something for an adjoining property.