The amount of time Dorset Council is taking to complete land charges search requests has been more than halved since October. For the month of February, the average time to return a search was 26 working days compared to an average of 62 working days last October.
Local land charges searches are made when buying a property. Search requests are generally made by purchasers, through their solicitors or search agents.
A report to the council’s Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee last September explained the delays were mainly due to a record number of searches requested during the Covid pandemic, some staff vacancies and system changes.
In response to this in September six new staff were recruited to fill vacancies and expand the team. As part of the Planning Convergence and Transformation project the land charges team are now working on one software platform. This has helped the team reduce the delays.
Work will continue to harmonise the Land Charges registers from the former district and borough councils and the team are looking at creating a land charges portal where customers could submit and pay for their search enquiry electronically.
Cllr Jill Haynes, Dorset Council’s Portfolio Holder for Corporate Development and Transformation, said:
“This is an incredible achievement when last year we received almost twice the number of land charge searches that we normally manage.
“I am very grateful for all the hard work that the staff have put in we continue to work to reduce the time that searches take and hope to get them down to 10 days in the next few months
“It is good news for anyone buying or selling their property, which we know can be a stressful time.”
A full report will be reviewed next week by the council’s Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee. See the meetings full agenda
Reduced, this is not the experience of the purchasers of my property. They are buying indemnity insurance as its taking so long compared to others in the chain.
And local estate agents are still warning buyers of the long delays associated with Dorset’s searchers compared to those undertaken by other Local Councils.
Hi Pete – This is using the statistics from our performance data. This does not take into account agents or solicitors practices. We admit there is still work to do to bring the wait down and we will do that, but this is good news. Fiona
Hi Fiona, are there wide regional variations in performance in Dorset as its still much longer than this where I live, I’ve just checked with 2 local estate agents to confirm?
Hi Pete – it is an average, but we are seeing reductionsin all areas – bear with us, we will continue to bring it down. Fiona
Hi , this is not our experience either. Today we were told it would be June 8th before they were done. We are moving into Dorset and sold our house 6 months ago. This is the 3rd attempt to buy. Our buyers are getting very jumpy. How can it take so much longer than anywhere else still. So much for the public apology 6 months ago!!
We are coming from Stockport where searches take 10-15 days!!
We are working towards the Government target of 10 days. As the article explains there is a number of reasons why we haven’t been able to meet this – but we are working on it. Fiona
Mine were due last week after waiting since Feb and now been told end of June!!
Hi Carol – Were you informed of this date by your solicitor? We do not give dates for information to be back, we give you an average of days it takes. We cannot be responsible for the uinformation given to you by another party. Fiona.
Hi Fiona, thanks for your reply. Our solicitor gave us that specific date which we found so disheartening. 6 months in and 3 different houses we had hoped to see progress
Carol.
If this is the case why are my solicitors still waiting for a search requisitioned in December last year ?
Hi Mike – They may not have submitted it to us in December. Also the figures quoted are an average, so there will be cases that take longer, as well as searches that are returned quicker. I’d check with your solicitors as to when they actually submitted the search. Fiona
Last year it took in excess of 75 working days (3.5m) for our searches to be returned which ultimately meant we lost our chain. Glad it’s reduced, however it should never have gotten to that poor state in the first place.
we are buying in Shaftesbury, so far have been waiting 50 days for the searches to come back. we were originally told start of Feb that it would be end of May
Hi Mark – I am sorry that you have been waiting. We do not give dates for return, we give you an estimation of the time it will take. You may want to talk to your solicitors about when they actually submitted the search. Fiona
Hi Fiona, just wanted to let you know we have got the necessary searches so hopefully things will now progress quickly.
Carol
Hi Carol, can understand your frustration. We are selling in Dorset and our buyers have been told that search will take 90 days which ends on 15th May, so it’s difficult for the whole chain to plan anything. For our purchase in Sussex it only took 5 days. In the meantime we just have to wait. How long did yours take in total.
Hi Terry, we are bringing the time for searches to be done down. The average time it took in March was 16 days. So hopefully your buyers will have some good news. Fiona
Thanks for your response Fiona, its very good news if true that in March the average time is 16 days, however what about cases that were submitted in February and still no response. It sounds that you are doing the newest ones first and forgetting about long outstanding searches. How big is your backlog sitting there.?
Hi Terry, We continue to work through applications and land searches in date order received. The 16 days is an average and of course as such some are taking longer and some a shorter time. We are whittling that back log down. Fiona
Hi Fiona, sorry but I don’t really understand. If as you say the average time is taking 16 days, and you are doing in DATE order and my buyers are still waiting from February. What you are stating doesn’t make sense. Why not give us the truth.? It’s still a mess. It would be good to know how long its really going to take.
Terry – with an average number there will be larger values and smaller values. To make an average we add up all the values and divide by the number of values. Your buyer may have been told by their solicitor about the number of days it takes and sometimes they don’t submit the searches when they say they do (this happens quite a lot!). Fiona
The 16 day average is a con, you are and have shown that your department has inefficient workers and a lapsy daisy attitude to work, excuses etc are honed to perfection.
The fact is your improvement is less than acceptable, as you still remain exceptionally bad.
Hi Fiona I have just been told by my solicitor that Dorset LA have given a specific date at the end of June for searches to be returned that were submitted in the first week of March. Are you saying this is incorrect information?
Hi – we only give an average number of days that returns are currently taking. We dob’t give a specific date, but Solicitors often do. This date will reflect the work they do as well as the time taken for us to return the searches. Fiona
What is the average at the moment as they must have got that very long time from somewhere and they said it was the date given by the local authority. Thanks
Hi Heidi – we generally don’t give an exact date. we publish average times on https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/planning-buildings-land/local-land-charges/local-land-charges/submit-a-local-land-charge-search-local-authority-search. Fiona
Hi, our searches took a total of 5 weeks from being requested by our solicitor. However, further up our chain (also buying in Dorset), they are not expecting their searches back until the middle of May (which will be approximately 13 weeks), even though, in theory, they should be a couple of weeks ahead of us! The problem is that a lot of the information and expected dates seem to come back via third parties (solicitors, estate agents, etc.) and it is difficult to find out exactly what is going on. I believe that some solicitors also use agents to obtain the searches, which seems to add to the complication. We understand the recent difficulties of Covid, but most businesses, where a job is carried out within-house, would be able to provide their customer with a specific date; not sure why a Local Authority cannot do the same. After all, we are the customer and we are paying for this.
Hi, Our buyers applied for their searches from West Dorset on 19/4/22 and they’re still not back! We are buying a new house in North Dorset that is sitting empty waiting for us, because of the delays with Dorset searches we have opted to avoid the searches and just take indemnity insurance. We are still waiting for our buyers searches and in the meantime biting our nails and hoping they are here before our sellers lose patience. As you are aware every time a sale falls through because of this totally avoidable delay it costs a lot of money and heartache. How can other areas do this in 5 days?!
Hi Virginia – sometimes the land searches aren’t submitted by agents when they say they are. We are currently turning around searches with an average of 14 days – details can be found at https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/planning-buildings-land/local-land-charges/local-land-charges/submit-a-local-land-charge-search-local-authority-search
We are aiming to bring this down to under 10 days which is the Governnment’s guidelines. This news item explains what the issues were and how we are working to bring the wait down. Fiona
Although there still seems to be a lot of frustration in this thread, it’s fundamentally a good news story. As my own search request is about to go in I am hopeful of a speedy turnaround (fingers crossed!).