Six councils in East Sussex work together to help home movers

Launch of electronic property searches will help councils, businesses and residents benefit from Home Information Packs.

A new electronic local land charges search service will speed up property transactions for home movers in East Sussex. From March 5th to the 7th, three events were launched for local land charge officers, solicitors and estate agents to provide them with information on how the new service will save them time and money, as well as helping them provide a vastly improved service to local home movers.

When someone buys or sells a property, one of the processes they have to complete is a local land charges search from the records held by the local council. All of the councils in East Sussex are electronically connected to a national search service called NLIS (National Land Information Service), which enables them to reduce the time it takes to process searches. Using NLIS, the average turnaround time for searches from the six councils in Sussex is just 4 days.

This move is particularly significant because it is helping local businesses and home movers get ready for the introduction of Home Information Packs (HIPs). From June 2007, all home sellers will have to produce an HIP before putting their property on the market. Local Land Charges searches, which let buyers know about the planning history as well as any restrictions such as Planning Agreements and Tree Preservation Orders that affect their new property, will form an essential part of HIPs.

Home sellers will benefit from fast, official local authority searches because it will enable their agents to produce HIPs quicker. This means that the seller can market their property within the fastest possible time-frame. Having an official local authority search in the HIP will give home buyers a full picture about the property they are planning to purchase and will enable them to make informed decisions.

Lesley Webster, Head of Wynne Baxter, Residential Property Department said: “We have found that submitting searches to councils electronically through NLIS has made the whole process faster and more efficient. HIPs are just around the corner and if we are to meet our customers’ demands we need to receive local authority searches quickly and electronically. We will not be able to wait for searches to be delivered and returned by post. The councils of East Sussex have risen to this challenge and have responded to the needs of their local people and businesses. In East Sussex, this will help ensure that HIPS meet their original objective of making home moving faster and provide a guaranteed quality of an official local authority search”.

Property buying and selling has a big impact on residents, businesses, estate agents and solicitors across East Sussex. The current population of East Sussex is 752,929 and is estimated to increase to 781,700 by 2011. Between 2006 and 2011 it is estimated that there will be a net increase of 9,100 dwellings. At Brighton Marina, 853 units will be developed and there is the potential for an additional 1,300 additional units, which is being proposed by one of Britain’s residential company’s, Ex’plore Living.


Stephen Adams, Senior Local Land Charges Officer at Rother District Council said, “HIPs are going to completely transform the conveyancing process. Six councils working together in East Sussex are going to help local estate agents and solicitors ensure that their businesses are in the best position to prosper in the new conveyancing environment. The turnaround time of our official local authority searches meets the need of local home movers for quality information and the prompt marketing of properties.”

The six councils in East Sussex that are working together to transform their search service are:

Brighton & Hove Council
Eastbourne Borough Council
Hastings Borough Council
Lewes District Council
Rother District Council
Wealden District Council