As anyone who’s bought or sold a property in the UK can attest, conveyancing is an essential and essentially unavoidable part of that process.
Solicitors or conveyancing specialists provide the associated services to their clients fundamentally to ensure that the ownership of a specific property is transferred from one party to another in ways that are legally sound and contractually watertight.
Without that guidance and support, homebuyers or sellers run the risk of making errors with their paperwork that ultimately costs them a great deal of time and money to resolve.
How long should it take?
The conveyancing process will generally take between 12 and 16 weeks in the UK, and while that may seem like a long time, what you get in return is a reassuringly solid legal basis for your acquisition or sale of a given property.
Crucially, the process takes weeks rather than days to conduct and conclude in part because it’s necessary for a sequence of important and somewhat time-consuming searches to be carried out on your behalf as a prospective homebuyer or seller.
Rationale behind conveyancing searches
For homebuyers, it can help to be aware that a variety of searches are an entirely normal and routine part of the conveyancing process in the UK. It is certainly not the case that the need for searches represents a cause for concern.
Fundamentally, conveyancing search processes are carried out to establish—as far as is possible—whether there are potential problems or issues associated with a given property that either buyers, sellers or both parties need to be made aware of. Specifically, what a conveyancer will be looking for are issues that might impact either a property’s market value at a given moment, or its potential usability going forward. Inevitably, such matters will be of at least some significance in the context of a property deal being done, not just for buyers and sellers, but for mortgage providers as well.
Common searches
Three of the most common searches that a conveyancer will conduct are:
- Local authority searches
- Water and drainage searches
- Environmental searches
Local authority searches are a means through which a conveyancer can access any potentially relevant information about a specific property as might be held by the local council. Information that’s gathered during these searches will generally relate to, for example, building regulations, or details about plans for a new road to be built or dug up nearby.
Water and drainage searches are intended primarily to establish whether and how a given property is connected to the water mains, and the sewage and drainage systems, in a specific vicinity.
Environmental searches are aimed at finding out any information that might be available on localised environmental hazards, such as notable flooding risks, high levels of pollution or potential causes of contaminated water supplies.
Other searches…
The three forms of search listed above are generally regarded as the main searches undertaken by conveyancing service providers in the UK. However, there are others too which might be carried out if they are deemed potentially relevant, such as:
| Flooding search (if a property is in an area prone to flooding) |
| Bankruptcy search (to establish if a buyer or seller is currently bankrupt) |
| Chancel repair search (this checks whether a property might be liable for chancel repair) |
| Coal mining search (these searches generally only happen in former coal mining areas and are conducted largely to check for risks of subsidence) |
| Drainage search (this will essentially be an extra search conducted to investigate issues not detailed or assessed by an initial water and drainage search) |
Why might extra searches be needed?
It can sometimes be the case that an initial set of searches carried out in relation to a given property bring to light issues that demand further investigation.
That isn’t necessarily bad news—or at least not terrible news—for a prospective homebuyer or seller but it will usually lengthen the time it takes for a conveyancing process to conclude and potentially cost a little more money.
However, once all necessary searches are conducted and concluded, then homebuyers, sellers and mortgage lenders alike can be completely confident that the information they have about a property is as reliable and comprehensive as it possibly can be.
Getting good advice
A good conveyancing service provider or solicitor will always be well-placed to advise prospective homeowners about precisely what kinds of search are necessary in their situation.
Conveyancing service providers generally will not want to conduct searches that aren’t needed. However, at the same time, conveyancers are obliged to carry out all and any searches as are required of them within a specific set of circumstances.
Finding out the facts
The conveyancing process is generally one that people wish could happen more swiftly than it typically does but it is carried out for good reason.
It is easy to take for granted the idea that a property you’re buying is connected to a nearby sewage system, for example, or that it is no more susceptible to flooding than anywhere else. However, if those assumptions turn out to be wrong then you’ll be glad of the searches your conveyancers conducted on your behalf to establish the facts.
Ultimately, while they often simply detail and organise information in a routine manner, the searches carried out during conveyancing can also save individuals and families thousands of pounds, as well as lots of potentially otherwise wasted time and legal headaches.
If you want to learn more about conveyancing searches, you can visit our dedicated “What are Property Searches?” page.
Home Legal Direct
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