Your offer's been accepted, you've paid your solicitor's first invoice, and somewhere in the paperwork there's a line that says "searches ordered". Then nothing happens for a few weeks, and when you ask why, the answer is "we're waiting on the searches".

Here's the plain version. Searches are a set of enquiries your conveyancer sends to the council, the water company and specialist data providers. Between them they're the only systematic look at what's attached to the property and what's coming to the area around it. They aren't a formality, and they aren't a survey either. They answer questions about records, not about bricks.

What they actually are

A standard pack in England and Wales is four searches. Your conveyancer orders them, and the cost comes on the conveyancing bill.

They're not about the condition of the house. A search will tell you a public sewer runs under the garden. It won't tell you the roof leaks. That's what a survey is for, and we've covered which survey you actually need separately.

They're about the property and the land, not the street's vibe. They report what's on official registers and datasets. If something was never recorded, a search can't find it.

The local authority search, and why it comes in two halves

This is the big one, and it's really two separate things that get ordered together.

LLC1, the local land charges register. This is a register of charges and restrictions that bind the land. It's where you'll find whether the building is listed, whether it's in a conservation area, any tree preservation orders, planning enforcement notices, and financial charges the council has registered against the property.

Councils have been moving their registers over to HM Land Registry. Where yours has moved, the official search is a flat £15 and comes back quickly, and a personal search of the register is free (HM Land Registry fees, checked October 2026).

CON29, the council's enquiries. These are questions the council answers from its own records. Whether the road outside is adopted and maintained at public expense. Proposals for new roads or rail schemes nearby. Planning and building regulations decisions affecting the property. Outstanding statutory notices. Breaches of planning or building control. Compulsory purchase orders.

CON29 is still answered by each council, and each council sets its own fee. That's the practical point. One half of the local search can be near-instant, and the other half is processed by a council team that may be quick or may be weeks behind. If your purchase has stalled at the searches stage, this is usually why.

The CON29 answers on planning are a starting point, not the whole picture. For what's been applied for next door, read the register yourself. Our guide to checking planning applications near a property walks through it.

The drainage and water search

Known as CON29DW, and answered by the water company rather than the council. It covers:

Whether the property is connected to the public water supply and the public sewer
Whether the sewers and drains serving it are maintained by the water company
Where the drains run
Whether a public sewer or water main crosses the boundary

That last one sounds dull until you want an extension. A public sewer across the plot restricts building over it, which can rule out the rear extension you'd quietly planned for year two. If you have plans, read this search with them in mind rather than letting it go straight into the file.

The environmental search

This looks at past and present land use and physical risk around the property:

Contamination from former industry or landfill
Flood zones and surface water risk
Ground stability
Radon

It's a desk-based report built from datasets, so treat a flag as a reason to look closer rather than a verdict. For flood in particular, the environmental report is a summary. Our guide on how to check flood risk properly covers reading the underlying maps yourself, which you can do before you've even made an offer.

Chancel repair

Some properties sit on land that carries a historic liability to contribute to the repair of a parish church chancel. It's rare, but it's open-ended when it bites. Conveyancers deal with it in one of two ways: a chancel search, or more commonly an indemnity insurance policy. The policy is cheap, and it's usually the sensible choice.

What searches won't tell you

This is where people get caught out.

They don't report on the building. Damp, cracks, a tired roof: survey territory.

They describe the property, not the neighbourhood in any depth. A rail scheme proposal will show up in CON29. Your neighbour's application for a two-storey rear extension may not. The road being a rat run at 8am definitely won't.

They're a snapshot. They report what's on the record on the date they're run. A planning application lodged a week later isn't in them.

For a flat, the important documents are elsewhere. Service charges, major works, the lease length and the building's safety position come from the management pack and the lease, not the searches. Our leasehold flat checklist covers what to chase there.

What to do about it

Ask your conveyancer which searches they're ordering, and why. A standard pack is the four above. Ask whether anything extra is worth adding for your area.
Ask whether the council's local land charges register has moved to HM Land Registry. If it has, the LLC1 is quick. If CON29 is the holdup, at least you know where it's sitting.
Read the searches yourself when they come back. Your conveyancer will report on anything legally significant. They won't know you were planning an extension over the drain run.
Check flood and planning before you offer. Both are public and free to look at. Finding a problem at the searches stage costs you weeks and fees. Finding it before you offer costs you an evening.
Don't skip searches as a cash buyer to save time. It's the one stage where you're protected by records rather than by someone's say-so.

The honest summary

Searches are a records check: what binds the land, what the council and the water company know, and what the environmental datasets flag. They're slow because the council half is still answered council by council, not because anyone's being lazy. Read them yourself, especially if you have plans for the place. The search that matters most is the one telling you what you can't do, and you'd rather find that out before exchange than after.

This is general information about buying property in England and Wales, not legal advice. Scotland and Northern Ireland have different processes. Your conveyancer is the right person to advise on the searches for a specific property. Fees as at October 2026.