Estate agents offered first ever free property hazards searches

PropertySearchesDirect says its initiative will ease the often difficult relationship between estate agent and conveyancer.

A recently-launched search company has begun offering estate agents and buyers a free service that flags up any major hazards a property may have before a sale progresses to searches.

“We are looking to ease the often difficult relationship between estate agent and conveyancer by reducing age old resentment and misunderstanding and enabling a more collaborative conveyancing environment,” says Daniel Hamilton-Charlton, a director of online service Property Searches Direct.

“If estate agents took a more proactive role by asking buyers and sellers to get more information up front then the likelihood is that fewer chains would fall apart.”

Property Searches Direct claims to be the first in the UK to offer a hazard checker service for free to agents and buyers, information that is normally only available to conveyancing professionals and usually only checked once a sale has been agreed.

FLOODING

This includes information on flooding, ground instability, radon gas, subsidence, planned transport improvements, contaminated land and planned infrastructure engineering projects.

Hamilton-Charlton says the free service is part of his company’s promise to both speed up the conveyancing process, but also increase transparency within the largely opaque world of sales progression.

“We believe buyers, seller’s and their agents should go into a purchase with their eyes open, so this is exactly what our system provides,” he says.

“We provide exactly the same products that would be ordered by a conveyancer but crucially we are enabling home movers to order them at the beginning and not some weeks in to the transaction.”

(as seen in The Negotiator 24/09/2020)