Wait times for local authority searches are now longer than four months in some areas, with many property deals collapsing as a result.

Bottlenecks are extending the time taken to receive search results putting huge pressure on home buying chains, the House Buyer Bureau says.

Worst example

In the worst example, Bracknell Forest Council currently has the longest average turnaround time in the UK at 92 working days, largely due to major IT issues.

It has seen delivery times increased by 85 working days over the last two years alone.

The London boroughs of Camden and Merton, with Rochdale Council, now all average 52 working days for search turnaround times. In Merton, this marks an extra 42 working days compared to 2024.

Elsewhere, Tonbridge & Malling Council has seen average turnarounds climb to 47 working days following a 42-day increase, whilst North East Derbyshire Council, North Somerset Council, Oxford City Council and Tamworth Council, all now take 42 working days.

Transactions are simply taking far too long to progress.”

Chris Hodgkinson, MD at House Buyer Bureau, says: “One of the biggest frustrations for sellers in the current market is that transactions are simply taking far too long to progress, and delays during the legal stages are becoming a major reason why so many sales are struggling to make it to exchange.”

A new Land Registry initiative was launched last year to look at how searches could be improved.

The pilot involving up to seven local councils in England and Wales looked at how digitised records of building regulations and highways schemes could help.

This initiative ran alongside the existing digitisation and phased migration of local land charge (LLC) searches from local authorities to the Land Registry which has seen a third of councils make the switch so far.