Do you know your Local Authority Search Turnaround Timescales?

Knowing how long your searches are going to take is vital to ensuring that completion timescales can be met.

Everyone that moves home has a desired moving date that likely gets agreed during negotiations. BUT, if the Local Searches are going to take far longer that expected, things can be delayed or at worst, derailed.

It is always a good idea to have all of the facts available during negotiations so that realistic and achievable dates are set and agree upon.

Our dates are indicative of the entire property market in England and Wales. We provide the data for both Official and Regulated Local Authority Searches and provide access to ordering both types.

Link to our Turnaround Warnings: https://www.propertysearchesdirect.co.uk/turnaround-warnings

Video Transcript:

"Today we are talking about Search Turnaround Timescales and how you can find out how long your searches are likely to take.

Accuracy, Transparency and Speed are really important to us at Property Searches Direct, so we want to make sure that everyone buying a property has access to the data to help them to understand how long searches are likely to take to return.

We publish the figures on our website at Property Searches Direct.

Just follow the links to "Search Timescales"

From there you can keep up to date with all of the Local Authority Search Turnaround times and understand the impact that they may have on your purchase or sale transaction.

On average a conveyancer will take 6.2 weeks to place an order for searches (as stated by the conveyancing association in 2022) so you will soon see how much difference you can make by placing an order yourself right at the start of your transaction.

Just make sure that your seller is definitely committed to selling to you and not someone else as your searches are property specific and cannot be transferred to

another address.

On the website you will find a list containing every local authority across England and Wales, along with a list of numbers representing working days.

The Left hand column is the time it will take (on average) for an Official Local Search to be returned and the right hand column is the average timescale for a Regulated Search.

You will note that one is often quicker than the other, but not by a general rule.

We cannot say that a Regulated Search will always be quicker, as that it simply not true.

However, the costs of a Regulated search is fixed nationally and an Official Search cost will vary with each local authority.

To find out what we mean when we say Official or Regulated Local Searches, please find my video where I talk about that.

If you do have any questions about the types of searches we have available please do reach out to us by email, phone or web chat.

We look forward to hearing from you."