I write in response to the recent article by Neil Clayton, head of legal services at the Property Search Group, a commercial search provider (see [2008] Gazette, 1 May, 12).


The Law Society is very carefully considering revisions to its current guidance to the profession on this important issue, which goes to the heart of a solicitor's responsibility to the client. It is crucial that solicitors are able to give clear and independent advice to clients on the basis of reliable, accurate information provided from properly authenticated data.



The Law Society has much wider obligations to the public than the purely commercial interests of Mr Clayton's employers. In fact, the Law Society has been open-minded, but has had to take careful note of what appears to be happening in the marketplace (especially since the introduction of the HIPs regulations), before it can consider issuing any form of guidance.



The problem arises where a personal search is being provided in a Home Information Pack (HIP), which in reality is quite often the choice of the HIP provider for reasons not necessarily other than keeping the overall cost of the HIP as competitive as possible. A seller's solicitor, and indeed a buyer's solicitor, has to make a judgment as to whether such a search is sufficiently compliant both to satisfy the regulations, and to provide the necessary, reliable information upon which a buyer (and indeed any mortgagee of the buyer) may be advised to proceed safely. If he or she is not so satisfied, then advice to the client to buy another search, whether official or personal, may well be appropriate. This undeniably adds a cost to the whole transaction that was not envisaged by the government in its introduction of the HIP.



Mr Clayton properly states that 'property search companies are not all the same'. Therein lies the problem, in that some are likely to be better than others. Hence the necessity for solicitors to err on the side of caution.



Richard Barnett, chairman, Law Society conveyancing and land law committee