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Thousands of sales at risk as local search waiting times lengthen

The Negotiator has found at least three large councils where agents are seeing 'nightmare' waiting times.

Nigel Lewis

local search waiting times bridport

Councils around the UK are struggling to complete pre-sale local search results, jeopardising scores of house sales as the stamp duty deadline approaches.

Home buyers in west Dorset are being turned down for mortgages due to long delays in the conveyancing process caused by a council backlog, while in Harrogate homebuyers face lengthy queues to finalise their purchases.

Meanwhile, Hackney Council is still suffering from a cyber-attack on its IT systems – putting a complete halt to the process – and has the highest turnaround time for searches in the country, at six months.

In Harrogate, local search requests take an average of 27 working days to process. The council says it faces, “unprecedented levels of demand” and received more than 700 search requests in October alone – almost twice as many as the same month in 2019.

Extra strain

Agents in Dorset blame a new system introduced to amalgamate the county’s former district and borough councils which has added extra strain to an already over-loaded system.

Delays of up to 13 weeks mean home buyers risk being gazumped by cash buyers as city dwellers flock to Dorset, affecting the entire chain.

matt greg local searchesMatt Gregg (pictured), manager of Wilson Tominey estate agent in Weymouth, told the Bridport News that there were delays of 45 to 50 working days in Weymouth and Portland, and up to 70 days in Chickerell and west Dorset, describing the situation as “an absolute nightmare”.

He says: “While local searches are a requirement for a majority of mortgage companies, people purchasing with cash have the option to forgo this – and therefore cash purchasers appear a more attractive buyer to the vendor of the property – which is obviously pushing out the first-time buyers, the local buyers, because they don’t appear as desirable.”

June 25, 2021

3 comments

  1. Hackney council for sure were hacked, I remember well Diane Abbott hijacking a government committee meeting about digital ID, telling us all for about five minutes, that a recent cyber attack meant her Hackney North constituents, should have a special extension on SDLT as they would fall foul of the SDLT deadline in a few days time. It would appear that her observations were on this occassion well founded. Unless you are a cash buyer, not so many completions happening in that area of London.

  2. Really??
    What a surprise!!
    Has everyone had their fingers in their ears??
    We are still helping people to complete, even in Hackney.
    We provide the OneSearch Express Residential which is an indemnity backed report containing roughly 70% of the data held in a local search and usually completes in 24-48hrs
    A product card and sample report can be found within the product in our shop at Property Searches Direct so that clients can ask their conveyancers to check suitability with lenders before ordering.
    DON’T LET SEARCHES BE THE REASON FOR A FALL-THROUGH. COME DIRECT.

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