Yes, each council or local authorities have their own cost to search and can have very different systems to produce them. Therefore, it may cost less than £30 to £300.

In some of the cases, a few legal companies have national agreements with search companies. Therefore, they get the benefit to pay a fixed price for the search, regardless of their own prices.

Pre-contract enquiries are done before the contracts are exchanged. It consists of enquiries related to the title, rights, and obligations over the property, and/or underlying land. Many of the enquiries are based on the Law Society’s standard forms.

Following is the list of common pre-contract enquiries that are related to:

• Electricity connection, shared gas, drainage, and water supplies
• The boundary of the property and parking spaces allocation
• Restrictions on land use, such as rights of way and shared access
• History of construction and permission of building work
• Restrictions on property alteration
• Building regulations for the gas, electric, or windows construction
• Terms and costs of leasehold 
• The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) issues

You can know about it through Chancel repair searches. A couple of decades ago, property owners rather than monasteries used to take the responsibility of repairing church chancels. After the law change in October 2013, the church must now establish and lodge liability with the Land Registry. However, in special cases, the church can still insist a property owner take the liability to repair even if the liability has not been registered. You can either opt for a chancel repair search that costs only a few pounds or take out Chancel repair insurance, which typically costs around £30.

The CON29 (a part of local search) provides information about the public highways, proposals for rail schemes, new roads, or planning decisions that might affect the property. Besides, you get information relating to outstanding statutory notices, breaches of planning or building regulations, or the existence of a compulsory purchase order. The area affected by environmental factors is also covered, such as whether the house stands on contaminated land or in a Radon gas.

Local searches have two benefits. First, it avoids the risk of unknown liabilities, which could be financial. Second, it provides information that could be useful to the purchaser.

The local search reveals if anything negative is recorded by the local council, against the property. Other than that, it also provides information about roads and other construction planning.

Local search becomes mandatory if you are looking to purchase a property, with a mortgage. It is compulsory to meet lender’s requirements.

If you book your removals before the exchange date, and the other party unexpectedly backs off from the deal, or the date changes, you might lose the amount of your deposit or have to pay a cancellation fee.

We suggest you wait until you have exchanged contracts, even if you may want to book sooner. Once you exchange the contract, you will have the certainty that you will be moving on the date agreed on exchange.

Many environmental factors are there other than chemical or mineral pollutants The contamination also includes the proposed installation of mobile masts or the closeness of electricity pylons.

If the property is built on former industrial or agricultural land, the investigation will consider any known pollution that may exist in the topsoil or in the nearby region. Every possible environmental factor that may impact the property will be considered as part of the environmental searches. The conveyancer’s report on the title for the property will include all these details after an in-depth investigation.

The completion day – the day when the remaining amount of the property purchased is handed over to the seller. Upon receiving the amount, the seller leaves the property and the buyer gets complete possession of the bought asset. The buyer usually collects the keys of the new property from the estate agents. The date of completion is decided on the day of contract exchange.

The quote for normal conveyancing transactions consists of the conveyancing services fee, and other additional costs, such as land registry fee, and stamp duty.

They are all the same. The local search is also called the local authority search or the local land charges search. It is a report received from the local authority which contains information specifically about the property and the surrounding area.