A guide to local land charge searches

It is mainly solicitors and conveyancing companies, acting on behalf of purchasers of property and land that use the local land charges service. A local land charge search is generally required when a property is purchased with a mortgage. Most solicitors will recommend one even if a mortgage is not required. 

The Local Land Charges section has a statutory duty to maintain the register of charges which is updated on a daily basis to ensure the information supplied is as accurate as possible. A fee is charged for providing a local land charges search.

For more about local land charges and what they are please use the link at the bottom of the page.

What is a Local Land Charges search?

A standard local land charges search, typically obtained by solicitors and conveyancing companies is made up of two forms; LLC1 and CON29R.

Searches are made on an identified area of land or a property. The response does not tell you about anything relating to the surrounding land or properties.  For example it would not reveal that the field to the rear of the property has planning permission for houses to be built on it. Although we can provide this information if an additional enquiry is made.

LLC1 Form

This is an official request to the council asking for a search of the Local Land Charges Register to be conducted. The local land charges section has a statutory duty to comply with these requests. 

Entries appearing on the register include the following:

• planning permissions with conditions
• planning enforcement notices
• conservation areas
• tree preservation orders
• financial charges to be repaid
• planning agreements
• identification of the property as a listed building

All these and many others place some kind of restriction on the property or area in which the property is located. This is not necessarily bad news because it is important to know, for example, that the two storey extension at the rear of the property has been built in accordance with planning permission.

CON29 Required Enquiries form (CON29R)

This form consists of a number of predetermined questions which are always asked.  The predetermined questions relate to:

• Planning
• Building Control
• Highways
• Environmental Health

Some of the information provided by answers to CON29R give 'warning' of action/notices that may eventually be registered on the Local Land Charges Register. All the information given will assist a purchaser in deciding whether to proceed with the proposed purchase. For a list of the CON29R questions please see the link below.

Besides the questions on the CON29R, there is also a set of other predetermined questions which can be asked if you and your solicitor decide they are applicable to the land or property. These questions are known as optional enquiries and need to be submitted using the form CON29 Optional Enquiries (CON29O).  Additional fees are payable for these optional questions. For a list of the CON29O questions please see the link below.

In some cases it is also possible to ask an additional enquiry of your own, although an extra fee is payable. Some solicitors already have additional questions that they ask. For example, they may ask for information concerning all the planning permissions within 50 metres of the land or property. Speak to your solicitor for assistance.

A completed local land charges search result will be returned to the requesting solicitor or conveyancing company.  At AVDC, standard searches are currently returned within 48 working hours. A list of our fees can be found following the link at the bottom of the page.

The alternative to an official local authority search is a personal search. Personal searches tend to be conducted by a private search company. To find out more about a personal search please follow the link below.

Cancellation policy

In the majority of cases a search can be cancelled up to 3.00pm on the day it is received into our office. Any cancelled searches will have their submitted paperwork and cheque returned that day. After 3.00pm we are unable to cancel searches, due to the exchange of information with others e.g. the County Council. Although we can stop searches after this time no refund can be made, and our recommendation is to allow the search to continue to be processed.