Cash Buyers: Why Skipping Searches Is a Risky Game

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Here’s a comment we hear time and time again: “I’m a cash buyer, so I don’t need to get searches.”

Now, strictly speaking, that is correct — but only in the sense that you don’t have a mortgage lender insisting on them as a condition of lending. That’s where the logic stops.

When a cash buyer decides that the information contained in searches is of little or no interest to them, I’m genuinely lost for words, which, as those who know me will tell you, is rare.

Why, when all of your money is exposed, would you risk purchasing a property for a significant sum completely blindfolded?

My advice to every cash buyer I speak to is simple. If you have genuinely leveraged your position, speed, certainty, lack of chain, to drive the purchase price well below fair market value, and you’ve created a meaningful buffer, which is difficult to achieve, then at the very least you should consider a no-search indemnity policy to cover the risks that searches would otherwise highlight.

But if you’re buying at fair market value and you have the time, get your searches underway.

Your environmental report can return within the hour. Your local authority search may take longer, but it could be the difference between making a sound investment and a dreadful decision.

So what exactly are you risking?

Your property lawyer is there to protect your best interests and ensure you’re not buying into a problem, and even they are never comfortable hearing that you have no interest in searches.

An environmental report will give you insight into flood risk, ground stability, contaminated land, climate change impacts, coastal erosion, radon gas, infrastructure changes, planning risk, and much more. With that information, you can decide early whether further investigation is needed, or whether the property is right for you at all.

Your local authority search is just as critical. It will reveal planning agreements, conditional planning permissions, enforcement notices, listed building status, conservation areas, smoke control zones, financial charges, restrictions on the land, and obligations that pass to you as the owner.

It also covers planning history, building control approvals, highway adoption and road schemes, tree preservation orders, proposed enforcement actions, Community Infrastructure Levy liabilities, assets of community value, rail proposals, and public rights of way.

Let me give you a real-world example. If the current owner extended the property without planning permission or without meeting building regulations, you could buy a home only to later be told that the extension must be removed. That costs money, and it destroys value. A double hit to your investment.

Now imagine you later realise the mistake and decide to sell quickly, hoping no one notices. The buyer orders searches, uncovers the issue, and walks away, leaving you with an unsaleable asset and a serious problem.

So do cash buyers need searches? No.

But should they get them? Absolutely.

Buying a property without searches is a fool’s game and not something that should be entertained lightly, unless you’ve bought at such a low price that the risk has already been priced in. And even then, I’d be asking why the seller was willing to give away that level of equity in the first place. Big red flag!

Thanks for listening to this episode of Moving Home, Uncovered. If you found this useful, subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes, and head over to propertysearchesdirect.co.uk/podcast to send me your questions. I’ll cover them in future episodes to help make moving home a smoother, less stressful experience for everyone.