Junior Housing Minister Iain Wright published new measures to help deliver faster and cheaper property searches for homebuyers.
Councils and private search companies will be expected to work together to improve the quality and speed of providing property searches to homebuyers.
The Government has set out new guidance to improve the process for consumers. Local authorities should now aim to provide access to their data within one working day to private search companies. In return, they will be able to recoup their costs by setting a fair charge for improving access.
The changes to property search delivery are the latest step in the Government's reforms to improve consumer experience of the home buying and selling process.
Search provision is improving but there can still be wide variation across the system - the best can provide it within hours but the worst can take 2 weeks, whilst charges range from £40 to £280. At present, private search companies are often unable to access council data, so they must take out insurance cover for any gaps.
The changes follow recommendations made by the Office of Fair Trading to improve competition between the public and private sector in the delivery of property searches to consumers.
Junior Housing Minister Iain Wright said:
"Homebuying and selling can be a stressful experience and we are committed to improving the system for people. By levelling the playing field for providers, consumers will be able to get important property information earlier in the home buying process and see the costs coming down as a result."
Home Information Packs (HIPs) bring some benefits to consumers, with average property search costs starting to fall because of the new competition created by HIPs - 85 local authorities have already reduced their charges by £30 on average.
Bridget Prentice, Minister responsible for local land charge policy at the Ministry of Justice, added:
"Local land charge searches are a very important part of the property search process.
"We want to give local authorities the power to set fees for a personal search of the local land charges register. The idea would be to charge fees on a cost recovery basis. This should help local authorities to improve the service they provide but more importantly it will ensure consumers pay a fair price for their search."
