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

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 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

What is a Local Authority Search, why do you need one and why you should get one from Property Searches Direct. Welcome to our quick look at what a Local Authority Search is and why you need one for your property purchase. Essentially a Local Authority Search is a vital part of the conveyancing (Home Buying) process and is one of the three required documents alongside the environmental report and the Drainage & Water report. They can reveal information that may lead you to renegotiate your offer or even withdraw altogether. They are always required when buying a property with a mortgage. A local authority Search comes in two parts, an LLC1 and a CON29. The LLC1 is the Local Land Charges Register search, which covers any planning agreements, enforcement notices, listed buildings information, light obstruction notices, aviation, financial charges or restrictions associated with the land or property itself. All of these and more entries place a restriction on the property that the owner is liable for, which could impact them financially or in the way that they can enjoy the property. They can include things like, Is the property listed, Is it located in a Smoke Controlled area, Is it in a conservation area, Or would you require a Renovation Grant? It also looks at planning agreements and any conditional planning permissions. All of the LLC1 findings are legally binding on each successive owner, so you will inherit any issues that arise, which is why you need to be confident that you are happy with the findings. The CON29 provides information relating to Public Highways, and any proposed rail routes, planning decisions or new roads that could affect the property, as well as any breaches of planning permissions or building regulations, outstanding statutory notices or the existence of a compulsory purchase order. The CON29 requirements have had several revisions but the standard enquiries cover Planning history, Building control regulation, Highways information (including road scheme proposals), Proposed tree preservation orders, Proposed planning enforcement or breach of condition notices, Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), Assets of community value, Rail schemes and proposals, Public footpaths shown on definitive maps and are answered using a standard set of 29 questions; which is why this section is called the CON29 Our regulated Local Authority Search, ie, those that are completed by a team of dedicated search agents (rather than staff at the council) are presented in a really user-friendly format. They are designed to ensure that the reader can get to the information that they want to see as quickly as possible. The front page, as shown here, is an overview, giving a high level indication of the reports findings. The second page is the contents page. You will see that it is colour co-ordinated so that the sections within the report can be easily identified. So if you wish to find out about contaminated land findings, you would head for the red section and Planning & Building Regs would be found in the blue section. After the contents page, each section will be presented in colour order, starting with the Search of the Land Charges Register, before moving on to the remaining sections. If at any time, once you have received your local authority search, you have any questions, the team at Property Searches Direct are available to help you. Chances are, we are going to be a lot easier to get hold of than your busy conveyancer. But to be fair, your conveyancer is best left alone to get on with their work, rather than being interrupted as they get hundreds of calls every day from clients, advisors and estate agents, it's any wonder they manage to get any work done during a working day. The next section is a Search information sheet. This page provides you with any useful contact numbers for commercial entities that have featured in the report that you may wish to make contact with if you have any further enquiries. Our Regulated Local Authority Search is appropriate for all Residential or Commercial Property Transactions. Before placing an order, it is always well worth having a look at our Lender Checker. This will help to confirm that your lender is happy to accept a Regulated Search (as most are these days). If they are listed and say no, you will need to get in touch via web chat, email or phone and ask us for a quote, as Official Searches (those completed by council staff) vary in price across each local authority area. So that's a Local Authority Search. If you have any questions about this or any of the other reports that we make available, please get in touch. #buyingproperty #conveyancing #buyingahome

People often ask us what the difference is between an Official Local Authority Search and a Regulated Local Authority Search. In this video we answer that very question. This will help you to decide which product you should order and why. Choosing the correct type of Local Authority Search will help to speed up a property transaction, BUT, you must be aware of the needs of your Mortgage Lender if indeed you are buying a property with a Mortgage. Official v’s personal local authority search Conveyancing searches explained Solicitor Searches Conveyancing Searches Conveyancing Solicitor Conveyancing Searches Explained Property Searches Today we are talking about the differences, or indeed the similarities, between a regulated local authority Search and an official Local Authority Search, or as we call them, a Council Sourced Search. A Council Sourced Search (or Official Search) is one that is completed by personnel at the Local Authority. It contains the same information as a Regulated Search because the questions raised in both are required to be the same. A regulated Search is one that is completed by a Search Agent, such as the team that we use across England and Wales, whose job it is to visit the Local Authority and get the answers to the questions raised. An Official Local Authority Search is guaranteed to be accepted by every lender (if you are getting a mortgage) but the cost of getting one will vary across all local authorities as each council charges a different price. A regulated Search tends to be more user friendly in the way that it is laid out and the cost for getting one is fixed nationally, so you can be assured that the price shown on our website at Property Searches Direct is the price that you will pay no matter where the property is. Before you buy any searches from us you really should use our lender checker. This will enable you to confirm whether your lender will accept a regulated search or whether you need to ask us for a quote for an Official Search from the council. The other thing that is worth checking is the return timescales. Every week we update the Local Authority Search Turnaround timescales for Official and Regulated Searches. So don't let the timescales come as a shock to you. Some areas are very quick and some can take weeks, if not months to return the results. So there you have it. 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 soon. #buyingproperty #conveyancing #buyingahome

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. Official v’s personal local authority search timescales Solicitor Searches Conveyancing Searches Conveyancing Solicitor Conveyancing Searches Explained Property Searches 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. #buyingproperty #conveyancing #buyingahome

What is a Drainage & Water report and why do you need one. These are available to Property Searches Direct and come within our search packs to save money. Today we are looking at the Drainage & Water report which is one of the three reports that you must have in place for a property transaction involving a mortgage. This is a key report in residential and commercial transactions and is an essential part of the conveyancing process. It is imperative that you are able to understand your liability for the maintenance of drainage & water pipes, whether the property is connected to the public sewer and how close the property is to any of the mains infrastructure. The report consists of two main sections. The first is the Drainage Enquiries. These provide clarity of the following points: Confirmation of sewerage undertaker, an Extract of public sewer map, Surface water connection, Adoption status, Drainage assets within the boundary, the Distance of public sewer to any building within the property and its Foul Sewer Connection. The second is the Water Enquiries section. These provide clarity of the following points: Confirmation of water undertaker, a Map of waterworks, Mains water connection, Adoption status and any Water assets within boundary. This search is backed by a comprehensive PI policy, which will safeguard all involved against any mistakes that may originate from water company datasets. It will also extend the same protection against the unlikely event of errors and omissions by OneSearch Direct (our supplier). Security is further strengthened with the inclusion of 6 years run-off cover, which ensures that any relevant claims are still honoured. Copies of a sample report can be downloaded from our website if you wanted to take a look before placing an order. These are included in the majority of our search bundles to save you money as the bundles are discounted. So there you have it. 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 soon. #buyingproperty #conveyancing #buyingahome