Searches are the part of conveyancing most people never see. Your conveyancer orders them, the results come back, and your report on title should tell you what they mean. When a problem surfaces after completion and it was in the search results all along, the questions are whether the conveyancer failed you, and whether that cost you money.
This guide goes deeper on searches. For the wider picture of conveyancing negligence, start with what conveyancers commonly get wrong.
What the searches are for
Each search answers a different question about the property:
- Local authority search — an official search of the local land charges register (held by the council or, increasingly, by HM Land Registry's national register under the Infrastructure Act 2015), plus the CON29 enquiries of the local authority. Together they reveal planning decisions and enforcement notices, whether the road outside is maintained at public expense, proposed road schemes nearby, compulsory purchase orders, conservation areas, tree preservation orders, listed status, and whether the council has identified the land as contaminated. Optional CON29O enquiries cover further matters if they are raised.
- Drainage and water search (CON29DW) — sent to the water company. It confirms whether the property is connected to the mains water supply and public sewers, and where public sewers run in relation to the property, which matters if you want to build over or near one.
- Environmental and flood searches — commercial reports on contaminated land risk, flood risk and similar hazards, which may recommend further investigation.
- Mining search — in former coalfield areas, a report from the Mining Remediation Authority (the operating name the Coal Authority has used since 28 November 2024) on past and present workings, shafts and subsidence claims.
- Chancel repair search — whether the property may be liable to contribute to repairing the chancel of a parish church.
A local search is about the property itself. Development on neighbouring land usually needs a separate planning search, and whether a reasonably competent conveyancer should have obtained one depends on the property and what you told them.
Obtaining is not enough: the duty to explain
A conveyancer must act with the skill and care of a reasonably competent conveyancer. For searches that means two things: obtaining the searches a competent conveyancer would obtain for that property and that buyer, and explaining what the results mean for you.
The second part is where most claims arise. In Orientfield Holdings Ltd v Bird & Bird LLP [2017] EWCA Civ 348 the solicitors obtained a planning report that revealed a major development nearby, then told their client that the enquiries had revealed nothing adversely affecting the property. The Court of Appeal upheld the finding of negligence, describing the threshold for passing on material information as intentionally low. If something in the results might matter to you, you should have been told about it.
The duty is sharpest where you told the conveyancer what you planned to do. If you said you wanted to extend over the back of the house and the drainage search showed a public sewer running there, silence on that point is hard to defend.
What counts as an adverse result
Not every entry in a search is a problem. A result is adverse in the sense that matters here if it could affect the property's value, your use of it, or your costs. Common examples:
- An unresolved planning enforcement notice, or works without planning permission or building regulations sign-off.
- A road that is not maintained at public expense, so frontagers may be asked to pay for making it up to an adoptable standard.
- A road scheme or compulsory purchase proposal affecting the property or close to it.
- A public sewer within the boundary, limiting where you can build.
- Contaminated land, a high flood risk, or a recommendation for further environmental investigation that was not followed up.
- Mining workings, shafts or past subsidence claims.
- A chancel repair liability that binds the property.
On chancel repair the law changed on 13 October 2013. Since then, a buyer who acquires registered land for value takes free of the liability unless it is protected by a notice on the register. An owner who has not sold since that date, or whose land is unregistered, can still be bound. So a missed chancel result matters mainly for purchases before October 2013, titles with a notice entered, and unregistered land.
Causation: what would you have done?
Proving the conveyancer should have told you is half the claim. You must also show that proper advice would have changed what you did, and left you better off.
Following Allied Maples Group Ltd v Simmons & Simmons [1995], the courts split the question:
- What you would have done is proved on the balance of probabilities. Would you have withdrawn, asked for a price reduction, insisted on indemnity insurance or further investigation, or gone ahead anyway? Evidence from the time carries weight: your emails, what you told the conveyancer about your plans, and how you behaved over other issues in the same purchase.
- What someone else would have done — whether the seller would have accepted a lower price, or an insurer offered cover — is assessed as a loss of chance. You need a real and substantial chance, not a certainty, and damages are scaled to that chance.
If you would have bought at the same price regardless, there is usually no recoverable loss, however clear the breach.
Typical loss
The usual measure is the difference between what you paid and what the property was actually worth with the problem, at the date of purchase. If you would have withdrawn altogether, the loss may instead be framed around the costs of extricating yourself or the money spent on a property you would never have bought. Where the problem can be cured at a reasonable cost — insurance, a sewer diversion, works to bring a road up to standard — the cost of cure may be the measure. Consequential losses that flow directly from the breach, such as wasted planning or architect's fees, can sometimes be added.
Time limits and the protocol
A claim in negligence generally has six years from the date of the breach — usually exchange or completion — or, if later, three years from when you knew or could reasonably have known the material facts, subject to a 15-year longstop (Limitation Act 1980, ss.2, 5, 14A and 14B). Search problems often surface years later, when you apply for planning permission or try to sell, so the knowledge date matters. See professional negligence time limits and the pre-action protocol, which governs how the claim is put to the firm and its insurer.
What a solicitor will want from you
- The search results themselves, with the dates they were obtained.
- The report on title and any covering letters explaining the searches.
- Your instructions to the conveyancer: emails or notes of what you said you planned to do with the property.
- The document that brought the problem to light — the planning refusal, the water company letter, the road charge, the chancel demand.
- The purchase price, exchange and completion dates, and the date you first learned of the problem.
- Any valuation, quotes for curing the problem, or costs already incurred.
- Your complaint to the firm and its reply.
This guide is general information about the law of England and Wales. It is not legal advice. A complaint to the firm or the Legal Ombudsman does not stop the limitation clock for a court claim.
Frequently asked
The search result was in my conveyancing file. Does that mean I was told?
Not necessarily. A conveyancer's job is to read the results and tell you about anything that may matter to you, in terms you can understand. A result buried in an appendix, or a report on title that says nothing adverse was found when something was, is the classic failure. The Court of Appeal has described the threshold for reporting material information as intentionally low.
What if the search was never done at all?
Failing to carry out a search that a reasonably competent conveyancer would have obtained for that property is itself capable of being negligent. The question then is what the search would have shown, and what you would have done with that information.
Do I have to prove I would have pulled out of the purchase?
You have to prove, on the balance of probabilities, what you would have done if properly advised — pulled out, negotiated, insured, or gone ahead anyway. If your case depends on what the seller would have done, for example agreed a lower price, the court asks whether there was a real and substantial chance of that, not whether it was more likely than not.
Chancel repair liability ended in 2013, didn't it?
Only partly. Since 13 October 2013 a buyer of registered land for value takes free of it unless it is protected by a notice on the register. Owners who have not sold since then, and unregistered land, can still be bound. Whether a missed chancel search matters depends on when you bought and how the title was held.