A Local Search is a legal report used within conveyancing when buying, selling or leasing properties/land. The search is used to assist the purchaser/lessee and/or mortgage/loan company to make a decision as to whether or not to invest their money.
Customer Notice
Building Safety Regulator
From 1 October 2023 the Building Safety Regulator became the Building Control Authority for high-rise buildings.
High-rise buildings are defined as having 7 or more storeys and/or being 18 metres or more high, and either having at least 2 residential units or being hospitals or care homes (during design and construction).
Enquiries should be made with the Building Safety Regulator for answers to questions 1.1 J,K & L for applications received on high rise buildings since 1 October 2023.
You may also wish to make enquiries of developers of new buildings and/or managing agents of existing buildings.
Local Land Chargers Register
In 2021, our Local Land Charges Register migrated to HM Land Registry’s National Register. To apply for a LLC1 you will be able to access a digital service through Portal, Business Gateway and on HM Land Registry’s GOV.UK page.
Dudley MBC continues to provide the replies to Con29 enquiries. It is important to remember to only submit the required fee for the Con29 to us. For more information, please visit GOV.UK.
Searches
The type of search you do depends on your individual needs, and what information has already been collated. A search consists of two parts:
The LLC1 form - this deals with all register-able charges
There are two types of this, either CON29R or CON290
This is known as the 'Certificate of search'. It is a request for a search of the Local Land Charges (LLC) Register. There are 12 parts to the LLC Register.
The LLC Register holds information that runs alongside the property, ie it doesn’t matter who lives there, or how many times the property changes hands. It contains conditions, agreements, restrictions, notices etc that are relevant to the site.
Examples of these are:
Financial Charges
Covenants/conditions contained in a Council House Sale
Repayable Improvement Grants
Tree Preservation Orders
Conditional Planning Applications from 01 August 1977
Legal Agreements
This form contains specific questions that the Law Society, with negotiation with Local Authorities and other agencies, deem the most important information held by the Local Authorities.
The information to answer this form is held within a number of our teams i.e. Highways, Planning, Civil Engineering and Private Sector Housing. The staff search their records to find the information, if any held, to answer the questions. An answer is given to each question even if it is no, none or not applicable.
Examples of the sort of questions include:
Are there any nearby road schemes?
Is the road adopted? (which means the Local Authority is responsible for its upkeep)
This form contains specific optional questions/'additional enquiries' relating to highways, planning and environmental health history which may affect the property or land.
Each question is optional, which means it is up to the individual to decide whether or not they want to include any of this information in their documentation. It is not compulsory to have the whole of the form answered, you just select which of the questions you want by putting a mark in the box adjoining the question.
We accept payments for Local Land Searches via debit/credit cards over the telephone or you can complete a form and return to us.
All forms should be sent to us and must include:
the correct fee, made payable to Dudley MBC
an accurate, full postal address of the property you want us to search against (including the postcode).
a plan of "ordnance survey" quality, showing the boundaries of the site you want us to search against clearly marked in red. Also any box C accesses to be clearly marked if cannot be named.
