Our Video Resources

Property Searches Direct was born out of a very real frustration with the way property is bought and sold in England & Wales. We created the company to make a difference and to help make the moving process more transparent, friendlier and more collaborative. We believe that the most important element in each and every transaction is the home mover themselves and that their experience is invariably less than positive. Why is that? Quite simply there are too many parties that work in silos that often fail to communicate effectively and are highly resistant to change, leaving you, the home mover, completely in the dark. Our national obsession with property is ancient, feudal even, creating a process driven clunky experience that has only been modernised slightly in recent decades. OK, granted, we have electronic identification, source of funds and online mapping of title, but transactions now take upwards of 15 weeks to complete. Roughly a third of transactions fail, costing home movers and the industry itself staggering sums on wasted fees and time, significantly affecting the transaction timescales for those that do complete. So what can be done? We believe fundamentally that when information is obtained at the beginning of a transaction, both buyers and sellers are empowered to make better decisions. Expecting property professionals to take full responsibility, is a recipe for disaster in our view. Our search reports are shared with home movers and their conveyancers at the same time, and Property Searches Direct is on hand to answer any questions. We made our Hazard Checker publicly available so that a simple postcode search indicates what issues might affect the enjoyment of the area. It is the same information that a conveyancer sees if they place a search order, but we offer these valuable insights to home movers themselves, so that conversations about these risks can take place even before a purchase is agreed. We make all property searches available to home movers to satisfy themselves whether they want to proceed or not, particularly if the results are not to their liking. Many buyers have told us that Searches revealed facts that led them to look for something more suitable, why would you wait until the end of a transaction to see that information. Pulling out of a transaction is unpleasant for all concerned. Upfront data empowers home movers and reduces stress and wasted effort for everyone. Whether you are buying or selling a property, or are a property professional yourself, we ask you to reconsider the well trodden path and explore a more efficient way to do things. Why not help us to improve the way in which property is bought and sold, by engaging with the upfront information revolution. Why not obtain and share information earlier and help speed up transaction timescales with Property-Searches Direct.

Take a look at how Property Searches Direct can help you with your next property transaction. Take control of your searches, speed up your transaction and get information far earlier in the process. If you are thinking about buying a property, one thing that you can take control of is your Searches. Searches are a set of documents that you need to have in place that give you information about the water and drainage connections, the environmental impact from flooding, ground stability, contaminated land, coastal erosion, solar and wind farms and much more, as well as information about planning history, building control, tree preservation orders, planning enforcements and so on. These documents need to be seen by your conveyancer or solicitor, as your lender (if you are getting a mortgage) will insist on the results being seen. Your conveyancer will usually order these for you and keep the results in their files until many weeks into the transaction. But if you want to see the results far sooner to make sure that you are making the right decisions, Property Searches Direct can help you to understand exactly what you need and how to get an order underway. The great news is that not only do they usually cost less than the conveyancer will charge, but the reports that you order are shared with the conveyancer to use for the transaction. So nothing is being doubled up. The environmental report comes back within an hour or so of the order being placed and you can start to raise further questions with the seller about flood risk (or whatever comes up), as well as discussing the level of survey with a surveyor based on the findings in the report. The great thing is that you can call Property Searches Direct about the results as they are much easier to get hold of than your busy conveyancer. So what are you waiting for? Visit Property Searches Direct at propertysearchesdirect.co.uk and get your searches underway. Just remember to tell your conveyancer that you are ordering them so they don't have to. #buyingproperty #conveyancing #buyingahome

An introduction to the Martello CON29M. Why you might need one and how this is a market leading product in the sector.

An introduction to the founder behind DevAssist, Paul Addison, and a deeper dive into the products and why home buyers should be considering using their products to make informed decisions. This is when Paul met with our CEO and Founder, Dan.

An introduction to Title Guardian and why Property Searches Direct are giving these away to its customers.

A short discussion about how taking control of your Property Searches can make a massive difference to your move. Take control of your property purchase and get back in the driving seat. Hi Jess. So I'm in the process of buying a property and feel completely in the dark about what's happening. Have you ever bought before? I have. I bought my first place last year, and it went okay. A few delays, but on the whole I felt like I was involved. Is yours going okay? Not exactly! I feel like I've been bound and gagged and thrown in the boot of my own car whilst someone else is driving. I'm getting travel sick already and want to get out. Well, when I bought, I decided to take some control, particularly because I wanted answers to some questions that I had about flood risk and works that had been done in the house by the owners. A friend recommended that I order my own searches so that I could get answers sooner. But didn't your solicitor do those for you? Well, they would have done if I had left them to it. But I didn't want to wait for them to eventually get around to it. I wanted to get an order in straight away. My environmental report came back within an hour, putting my mind at ease regarding flooding. My Local Search took a bit longer, but, when it did come back, I could find out all about planning and building regulations information and could then ask the seller to clarify some of the information about the works that they had done. I didn't want to inherit any issues you see. Have you seen your searches yet? Ummm nope? I think that they've ordered them though? But I don't really know for sure That's fairly typical from what I understand. Chances are that your solicitor has them back, or at least some of them, but they're unlikely to share them with you for fear that you'll ask them questions (that they don't really have the time to answer). They'll be busy with hundreds of files and won't want to be interrupted. So when will I see them? I've tried to get in touch with them but they're always busy and I often don't get a call back, or a reply to my emails, other than the really blunt one that says; "We've got your email so DON'T email us again!" Most people don't get to see their searches until they're sent a contract to sign, and that's right at the end of the process. I went to Property Searches Direct for a number of reasons. Firstly I could decide when to get them underway, secondly the reports came to me and my conveyancer at the same time and thirdly Property Searches Direct were much easier to get hold of when I had any questions about what the reports were saying. All that aside, I wanted to drive progress and let the estate agent and seller see that I was committed to the purchase, as I really didn't want them to pull out on me. I also wanted to make sure that my conveyancer had one less thing to worry about. They weren't comfortable about me buying my searches initially, but I reminded them that I was the client and I could spend my money when and how I wanted to be comfortable with my purchase. I mentioned Property Searches Direct and they were ok then. I wish I'd known that sooner! So what can I do now as I'm in a bit of a rush? Well, you want your conveyancer to get the job done properly, so you don't want them cutting corners. However (if you can get hold of them), ask for the reports that they have had back so far, and if they don't have any because they haven't placed an order yet, tell them that you would like to order them yourself at Property Searches Direct. They have an amazing 5-Star customer service rating on Trustpilot and are really easy to get hold of. You will feel far more involved in the process. Perhaps I might feel like someone has let me out of the boot of my car and put me back in the driving seat? Exactly! Do it today and take control of your purchase with Property Searches Direct. #buyingproperty #takecontrol #conveyancing

A quick look at the DevAssess Premium Residential Report, available to buy at Property Searches Direct to check the planning risks that could affect your future home.

A quick look at the Planda report, available to buy at Property Searches Direct to check the planning potential of your home.

An introduction to the Hazard Checker that is free to use at Property Searches Direct. Making Search alert data available to home buyers and sellers so that vital decisions can be made before significant amounts of time and money are spent. Welcome to this quick look at our free Hazard Checker which is available to use at Property Searches Direct. The Hazard Checker enables anyone (whether viewing a property or planning to sell one) to find out what environmental hazards are likely to be shown up during the conveyancing process. Until Property Searches Direct made them publicly available in 2021, these search alerts, or Hazards as we call them, were only ever seen by a conveyancer at the point of placing an order for the Searches. We thought, HOLD ON A MOMENT, why should a conveyancer be the first to see the hazards when they are likely to be of significant importance to an unsuspecting home buyer before they commit to a purchase and start spending money. They are also of vital importance to anyone looking to sell a property, to avoid any nasty surprises being revealed many weeks into a transaction that could derail the sale. Having spent over a year reviewing environmental report results and cross-referencing them with numerous environmental datasets, we made the Hazard Checker available for all to use as an indicator of the risks present within each postcode area. We must stress that the results are not property specific, but are definitively alerts within the same postcode area. Only an environmental report ordered for a single property will show property-specific results. To get started, all you need to do is add the postcode for the property that you would like to check Hazards against and click on submit. Our system will then draw the postcodes polygon and overlay it with the hazard mapping data, presenting any results that have been found. All results presented can be expanded to reveal an explanation as to what each one means. The Hazards that the checker looks for include Coal, Radon, Ground Stability, Flood (both Pluvial and Fluvial) Energy, Transportation, China Clay, Tin Mining and Brine We would recommend that anyone out viewing properties should use the Hazard Checker, as well as anyone looking to sell a property, so that you can get ahead of the risks. Perhaps even order an environmental report to offer clarity to anyone coming to view your property. Disclosure of these risks and the levels of risk that exist will lead to better understanding, better decision making and less sales falling through due to nasty shocks. Find our Hazard Checker on our website at PropertySearchesDirect.co.uk and if you have any questions about it or any of the reporting that we make available, please get in touch via web chat, phone or email. #buyingproperty #conveyancing #buyingahome #floodrisk