Land Data calls for Government to make official authoritative searches compulsory in all home buying transactions

Published by Fiona Barron for Land Data in Local Government and also in Central Government, Housing

Land Data fully supports the new coalition government’s swift decision to suspend Home Information Packs with immediate effect and asks for official authoritative searches to be made compulsory in all conveyancing transactions.

Jan Boothroyd, Land Data chief executive said that Home Information Packs almost immediately became synonymous with price and the reduction in price was mirrored by a reduction in the quality of property searches contained within the pack. Ultimately this exposed consumers to incomplete and out of date information, often insufficient for the needs of a buyer. This in turn led to the buyer’s conveyancer ordering searches for the property again and the unsatisfactory situation where the seller and the buyer were both paying for searches.

Land Data believes consumer interests are best served by official, indemnified authoritative data from local authorities, water authorities, land registry and the coal authority. Further more, consumers should only pay for this information once and have the right to expect it to be up-to-date, complete and available at the point in the conveyancing transaction that they need it.

With the removal of HIPs there is an opportunity for Government to look at new initiatives to improve the home buying process and Land Data believes making official searches compulsory will not only protect the home buying public from poor search practices but will bring instant clarity to a confused market.

- Ends -E: fiona.barron@land-data.org.uk / justin.scott@land-data.org.uk  www.land-data.org.uk

Notes to Editors

Land Data regulates NLIS under an agreement made in 1999 with local government to fulfil objective 43 of the Modernising Government Action Plan and carries the sole mandate for NLIS commercialisation. IDeA established Land Data to serve the interests of the general public by making authoritative property search information accessible to all, whilst at the same time improving the home buying and selling process. Land Data fulfils this remit by promoting official electronically sourced land and property searches via NLIS, throughout England and Wales. The NLIS Hub is connected to all local authorities in England and Wales, Land Registry, the Coal Authority and other sources of land and property information, the information is distributed by NLIS Channels to solicitors and licenses conveyancers. Since it began operation in 2001, over 18 million searches have been processed by the NLIS Hub.

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