Conveyancing Searches Cost: What Each Search Buys

What is a local authority search?

A local-authority search commonly has two parts. The Local Land Charges register search, often called LLC1, identifies recorded charges and restrictions affecting the land. CON29 consists of enquiries to the local authority on defined matters such as planning and building-control decisions, roads and other council-held information. Ask which standard and optional enquiries your quotation includes; a register search on its own is not the entire package.

HM Land Registry's service lists examples including planning conditions, highways agreements, tree preservation orders, conservation areas, listed buildings and environmental health notices. The service says searching available information is free and an official search certificate costs £15. Not every authority's data is on the service. Check participation and remember that CON29 remains a separate set of enquiries.

Searches when buying a house

Ask your conveyancer which searches are appropriate for the exact address, transaction and lender. A residential purchase commonly involves local-authority, drainage-and-water and environmental searches; the location and findings can prompt mining or more detailed flood enquiries. The names matter because a generic environmental report may have a different scope from a CON29M mining search or a specialist flood assessment.

Agree the timing before fees are incurred. Some buyers need information before an auction commitment; others commission searches after an offer has been accepted. Ask whether existing searches can be relied on, how old they are, whose name they are in and whether further questions remain. A cash purchase removes a lender from the decision, not the underlying uncertainty about land, access or environmental issues.

Council search fees: keep the source date in view

The table preserves our existing council cost research. Each row links to the council schedule and retains its original date; estimates are marked. The combined amount is the local-authority component only. It does not include the separate water, environmental or other search products, nor necessarily the conveyancer's handling charge. The article's update date does not certify that each old fee or migration observation is still current.

Local-authority component only. LLC1 and CON29 tax treatment follows the source table. Figures marked est. are estimates; follow each source and its original date to confirm the current fee and migration status. Other search products and handling charges are additional.

Use GOV.UK's council lookup if you are unsure which authority applies. Follow the row's source and confirm the current fee with the authority or your conveyancer. If a council is absent, obtain its actual quotation; the highest or lowest observed row is not a national price limit.

What each search costs, search by search

Every figure below is one this page already sources: the HM Land Registry service price, the dated council observations in the table above, and one provider's publicly listed environmental products. Where no public tariff exists the row says so rather than inventing a national average.

Environmental search: what it is and what it costs

An environmental search is a desk-based report compiled from mapped and public-record data for the property and its surroundings: contaminated-land potential from historic land use, flood risk from the national maps, ground stability, radon potential, nearby industrial processes and, depending on the product, energy and planning context. It is commissioned by the conveyancer, and the useful part is the professional opinion attached to it: a contaminated-land assessment the provider stands behind, with stated reliance terms. The provider-listed prices above (from £62 plus VAT for an entry product) are the public starting point; the conveyancer's pack price and any follow-up review are separate.

Two things an environmental search is not. It is not an inspection: nothing is visited or sampled. And it is not the same as the public data a buyer can read before offering: our flood, ground, coal and radon screens draw on some of the same open datasets but carry no liability opinion, so a reassuring screen is a reason to ask better questions, never a reason to drop the search. For the timing difference between the two, read pre-offer report vs conveyancing searches.

Compare the environmental product quoted

Landmark's public range, for example, lists Homecheck Residential from £62 plus VAT, Envirosearch Residential from £89 plus VAT and RiskView Residential from £136 plus VAT. These are provider-listed prices for named products, checked on 5 September 2026, not an assertion about a solicitor's negotiated pack price.

A cheaper entry environmental product and a broader bundle are not interchangeable. Ask whether the quote includes contaminated-land assessment, the relevant flood detail, mining searches and any follow-up review you may need. Check the terms governing who can rely on the report and what additional investigation an adverse or uncertain finding may require. For a closer comparison, read Landmark's report range.

Request an itemised total

Separate LLC1, CON29, drainage-and-water, the named environmental product and each optional enquiry. Ask which figures include VAT, whether search-provider or conveyancer administration is added, and what must be paid again if the property or transaction changes. A national budget range is less useful than this itemised quote. Drainage products and extra enquiries have their own suppliers and charges, so this guide does not invent a uniform price or turnaround.

The conveyancing searches cost guide provides a checklist for comparing quotations and handling follow-up results. Keep the original quotation, the ordered product names and the reports together. Ask your conveyancer to explain the implications, not merely whether each result uses a favourable label.

Where earlier screening helps, and where it stops

Free flood, ground, coal and radon screens may identify questions before you pay for a broad search pack. They can also return incomplete or area-level information. A low mapped category or no result is not proof that the property is clear. If your concern comes from a Homecheck flood result, use the flood-risk guide to separate flood types, map resolution and the need for a more detailed assessment.

HouseCheckup assembles available property screening records and reviews them before emailing findings and gaps. It does not supply an official local-authority search, a drainage search, a contaminated-land liability opinion, an inspected valuation or a survey. Its public-register and planning-designation context is not a complete history of applications or land use. Read the illustrative sample if that screening would answer an information gap, then commission the professional work your purchase needs.

Before you pay for the pack: the pre-offer preview

Searches are ordered after an offer is accepted and paid for whether or not the purchase completes. The Lite report (£9.99, one-off) is the preview step before that commitment: the flood, ground, coal, radon, contaminated-land and air-quality records we can read for the address, with the gaps named, so you know which searches to ask about and which questions to put to the seller before money is at risk. It previews the search pack; it does not replace one line of it. Lite vs Complete sets out what each tier includes.