When you buy a house, your solicitor will make a search of the Council's records to ensure there are no hidden surprises, such as motorways at the bottom of your garden or outstanding planning notices requiring you to take action to remedy an earlier building error.
Official local land charge searches
The local land charge section carries out all official searches covered by the Local Land charges Act 1975, guaranteeing comprehensive replies to the official LLC1 and CON29 enquiries.
The Council, by law, must keep a land charges register. This is a comprehensive record of properties in the borough from residential houses to commercial buildings.
The register includes information such as planning permissions, highway status and proposals, conservation area designation, tree preservation orders, enforcement notices, improvement grants and financial charges.
The Council uses the information on this register to respond to land charge searches when property changes hands. 100 percent of land charges searches are done within five working days.
Maps and plans
To avoid confusion, please include an up to date OS plan at 1:1,250 scale with the site clearly marked.
Scale of fees
- fee for a local search on a property within Lewisham – £150 (£65 from 1 Sept 2008)
- part II questions (we can not answer question 9 and 10) – £10 each
- own additional enquiries – £25
- land charges register only – £6 (£30 (extra parcel of land £5) from 1 Sept 2008)
- personal search – £11
- extra parcel of land – £25
- enhanced personal search – £36.
The search will be in two parts:
LLC1 - this first part, the 'Official Certificate of Search Form', deals with all the registerable charges, for example financial charges registered against the property by the local authority, improvement grants, tree preservation orders, conditional planning consents and agreements.
CON29 - the second part, called 'Enquiries of Local Authorities Form', deals with issues such as road schemes, the planning history of the property and various notices which affect the property.
Please note that searches must include the following when submitted to be accepted for processing:
- if a search is submitted by a solicitor, cheques drawn on the solicitor's client account are requested, made out with the correct amount
- the correct address and an up to date scale plan in duplicate showing the extent and location of the land in question clearly edged in red
- client's own cheques are not accepted as a method of payment. Please contact us regarding the fees using the contact details below.
The CON 29 enquiries questionnaire, which forms part of the official search, contains many 'warning' questions, the answers to which you will not find on any of the statutory registers.
Examples of the information only to be found by submitting a CON 29 are given below:
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compulsory purchase orders
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many informal notices under planning and highways laws not found on any register
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road proposals or schemes (including road widening)
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proposed enforcement action or breach of conditions notices.
How to access the service
There are full instructions on the local land charge search forms which are kept by your solicitor or can be purchased from legal stationers.
What happens next
We aim to return 90 per cent of official searches within 24 hours and no later than 48 hours.