Search for solution

I cannot get excited at the news of a new Land Registration Bill (see [2001] Gazette, 28 June, 1).

How can improvements save yet more time in conveyancing transactions?Already we can apply for office copies and make searches over the telephone and get the results the next day.

Already the Land Registry can complete registration in a fraction of the time it takes most lenders to produce forms FND or DSI.

Even if there were a significant number of sales so closely following other sales as to be held up by delays in registration, the Land Registry has procedures for dealing with that.

At least in domestic conveyancing, the delays that matter all come at the beginning.

The local land charges system has much improved in recent years but it is still much less efficient than the Land Registry.

If there is money available for improving the system it would be better to spend it on local land charges, so that every council can deal with their searches in three working days or less as a few councils already do.Also, it is time to deal with the dreadful consumption of paper involved in making a local search.

Most of us now produce our searches on word processors, which is quicker and easier but involves 11 separate pieces of paper, plus plans.

There is no reason why a request for a local search could not be contained on one sheet of A4, plus plan, which could then be sent by fax ore-mail.

It needs a change in the law because form LLCI and the related procedure is prescribed.

The two greatest savings in the time it takes to move house are to be achieved by improvements in the local searches system and the practices of lenders.

Removing those two delays will emphasise the human factors lying at the heart of all conveyancing.

Let no one imagine that houses will be bought and sold at the drop of a hat once all the procedures are streamlined.

It simply does not suit all home owners to move in that way.

Andrew Melling, Lionel J Lewis & Company, London SE12