tm blog

HMRC has announced that CON29 searches provided by Local Authorities will include VAT from 4^th July 2016.

Will this affect the price of local searches?

It is not yet clear how prices will be affected. Some Local Authorities have indicated that they will absorb the cost of the VAT; some will take the opportunity to review their pricing altogether; some will simply add VAT to their Con29s; and others have yet to decide.

If prices do increase, then it is only the Con29 element of the local search (& any optional questions) that would be affected, as the LLC1 element of the search remains non-vatable.

What does this mean for my clients?

If prices are affected, then it would be prudent for conveyancers to inform clients of this potential increase.

Will this change the CON29 form which is provided by the Law Society?

Yes, the Law Society have made samples of the new forms available on their website. View new CON29 forms

What should I do?

We will keep you informed, giving you as much notice as possible of any price changes. Rest assured that if the prices of local searches are increased, VAT will be added at the point of order as with other searches and you need make no other change.

Further information 

Revised CON29 & CON29O forms

If you have any questions or concerns please contact your account manager or the helpdesk by calling 0844 249 9200 or emailing helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

Property Searches Scotland (PSS) has announced that it has achieved 20% market share of the Scottish residential conveyancing search market within just 4 years of being established.

Part of the tmgroup family, Property Searches Scotland was launched in 2012 after commercial director Michael Tolland (pictured right) identified the burgeoning opportunity to provide fast, accurate and cost-effective property searches to the Scottish conveyancing market.

The company is now the fastest growing search company in Scotland with more than a fifth of residential conveyancers ordering searches from them and more than 25% using their services for remortgage work.

Providing the full suite of property searches required by conveyancing professionals in Scotland, England & Wales, PSS also offer a range of anti-money laundering products.

As part of tmgroup, PSS can call upon their parent company’s significant technological capabilities to maintain the best search turnaround times in the Scottish market. Not only that but PSS recently achieved a ‘world-class’ Net Promoter Score of 79, making it comparable with just a few elite companies across the globe.

Net Promoter Score is a universal customer satisfaction metric which measures how likely it is that a customer would recommend a company to a friend or colleague on a scale from -100 to +100. Surveymonkey’s NPS benchmark (an average of 76,147 organisations across 2015 and 2016) was 33, meaning that Property Searches Scotland sits among the top 25% of companies in the world for customer service.

Michael Tolland said of the news:
“I’m really pleased that we have reached this milestone but certainly even happier for the team that their hard work is being rewarded with excellent customer feedback. Everything we do is with our customer firmly in mind and we look forward to introducing even more useful and innovative services soon.”

To learn more about how you can save time and money on your property searches, visit our website or get in touch:
Michael Tolland, Commercial Director | Michael.tolland@propertysearchesscotland.co.uk | 07415 613964
Debi Haren, Business Development Manager | debi.haren@propertysearchesscotland.co.uk | 07943 066314
Alastair Graham, Business Development Manager | alastair.graham@propertysearchesscotland.co.uk | 07943 066315
Mark Welsh, Business Development Manager | mark.welsh@propertysearchesscotland.co.uk | 07484 008686

A Manchester Law Firm, BBS Law, has saved days of intensive administrative work by using tmgroup’s Land Registry Register Extract Tool when processing property portfolios. BBS Law are a boutique commercial law firm of choice and provide proactive, lateral thinking, efficient and cost-effective advice.

Partner Daniel Berger (pictured) heads up the property department, which has acted for substantial real estate clients for many years. The highly skilled property team delivers advice on a wide variety of property transactions and issues.

However, with the undertaking of property portfolios, there was one particular process which caused BBS Law problems. Daniel said:

“Whenever we’ve undertaken a property portfolio, we’ve always found the bulk order of title information from the Land Registry to be a tiresome and repetitive job.

Ordering title information from the Land Registry for just one or two properties can sometimes be a cumbersome affair, let alone when processing a portfolio of 50, 100 or 1000 properties. Daniel continued:

“The process generally holds up one of our secretaries for at least half a day to work on it and that’s just for a relatively small portfolio.”

With larger portfolios the administrative work scales dramatically because much of Daniel’s time was taken up by manually interpreting the initial plans and deciding which title numbers to order registers against.

The Land Registry tool, which was created by tmgroup as part of a collaborative development with existing clients, helps solve this issue by integrating with the Land Registry to bulk order title information and export it in a manageable, easy to use format. Speaking about his initial experiences with the unique service, Daniel said:

“We instantly saved more than half a day of processing time and received the information online in one go in a really easy-to-use format which did away with all of the hassle usually involved with interpreting the data. I would absolutely recommend tmgroup’s LR Extract Portfolio Service to any conveyancing firm undertaking a property portfolio.”

The service has also been independently verified by Legal Eye, a leading provider of best practice, risk management and compliance services to the legal services market. Managing Director, Jaunita Gobby said:

"Legal Eye (subsidiary of ULS Group) conducted an extensive audit of the tm LR Register Extract Service. The information was cross-referenced with the Official Copies (OC1s) and the data was 100% accurate. The audit has shown that the service is able to accurately pull through the exact information from the registers onto its portal so as to make it more user friendly and accessible to its clients. The tm summary screen gives a helpful indicator to detailed information contained within the OC1 which lawyers can then refer to. In our opinion lawyers should feel satisfied that the information provided on screen via the LR feed matches the information relied upon in the OC1s."

The tool is available now for commercial conveyancers through tmconvey. Learn more

In a property transaction, information concerning a property's relationship with local Highways has not always been readily available for conveyancers to pass on to their clients but serious problems can arise if they aren't identified early on in the transaction.

Recent research conducted by tmgroup revealed that 1 in 10 conveyancers never order a Highways Search, so we sat down with Rebecca Hickey Head of Legal Product at Landmark Information Group to learn more about why it's necessary to obtain this information.

Highways, why can they be tricky?
For residential and commercial conveyancing transactions, it is critical to investigate the precise extent of the adoption status of highways in and around the perimeter of the site. For example, you may believe that the footpath in front of the building is indeed publically owned and adopted but in reality it might not be.

What if the path hasn’t been adopted?
There could be potential issues with access to the property and it could have implications for the property owner regarding responsibility for its future upkeep; it could even affect the potential for redevelopment.

And if this wasn’t identified during the transaction?
Failure to identify developments where adoption procedures have not been dealt with adequately can cause delays to transactions as well as pose a risk to the purchaser’s future plans for the site.

So conveyancers should investigate?
Absolutely. If you were to imagine a typical scenario where a purchaser is looking to buy a property and the surrounding land which abuts a neighbouring property and there is a shared access onto the land.  As part of the due diligence the purchaser’s solicitor would need to identify the exact status of the access and the ownership of the area. 

Is it publicly adopted by the local authority, therefore they are responsible for maintenance and granting access or is it privately owned?  In order for the transaction to proceed the status of the access way would need to be confirmed.

What implications could it have for the purchaser?
Well, the purchaser may need to purchase additional pieces of land, negotiate shared access or at least negotiate a regular payment towards repairs.  This will undoubtedly add time and complexity to the transaction, which is not what either party want.

Vital information then – so, what sort of barriers would one normally face when attempting to source Highways data from Local Authorities?

With each Local Authority, the turnaround times for gathering this Highways data can vary widely. The same goes for the cost of the information and the level of detail provided.

How can you have the peace of mind that you have considered all the necessary aspects regarding the highways around the site?
A Highways report is the best way to obtain peace of mind for yourself and your client on this matter. For example, the Argyll SiteSolutions Highways report provides answers on the adoption status of highways surrounding the site; details of any road improvement schemes as well as rights of way. The report is manually assembled by a team dedicated to the production of this report with years of experience in the collation and analysis of Local Authority data and all data is sourced from the relevant Local Authority, Highways Agency or the Ordnance Survey. The report is backed by £10 million professional indemnity cover and has a fixed price of £120 +VAT.

About Rebecca
Rebecca Hickey joined Landmark Information Group in 2006 and fulfilled a number of different roles, including Project Manager and Senior Product Manager before taking the role of Head of Product (Legal Division) in 2015.

VAT: the one tax that is supposed to be unavoidable, unless of course we are talking about it being applied to local authority searches. The will-it won’t-it saga of January has now been put back to later in the year. But before the postponement was announced, tm asked its customers, “With VAT potentially being added to the cost of CON29 reports from February 1st or are you now more likely to order Regulated or Official Searches?”

Interestingly only 4% of respondents stated they were going to make a swap from official to regulated and, even if the 17% of ‘don’t knows’ are added in, the impact of a 20% price increase has swayed only 1 in 5 conveyancers to consider which type of local search they use. But there is also a large proportion who are insulated from the introduction of VAT as they either exclusively use regulated searches (33%) or mix-and-match between regulated and personal (17%). So this only leaves 1 in 3 respondents currently sticking to official searches.

There is the potential for a wide range of different scenarios to play out at each Local Authority when VAT is introduced. Perhaps prices will rise by VAT and that will be that but Local Authority fees vary hugely. If you are fortunate to conduct your transactions where official searches are around £60 then the addition of £12 is not such a big issue. If however you are at the other end of the price scale and are paying upwards of £250 the extra VAT is very close to the price of a regulated search. I wonder what impact that may have on what choices are offered to clients?

Having spoken directly to some the option to reduce the search fee so that new VAT price is the same as the old non-VAT price is under consideration. And despite the postponement from the 1st February it is probable that on all Local Authorities will uniformly add VAT from the new go-live date. If you operate across different Local Authorities then you may find the situation where one has added VAT and the other hasn’t.

As with any change there is a degree of uncertainty as to how seamlessly it is introduced and what potential disruption it may have to customers as conveyancers are in the service business and efficiency is a key part of good service.

To ensure the introduction of VAT onto official searches, on whatever timescale and in whatever way, is a hassle free for you and you customer the following points may be useful to bear in mind:

1. Is there a wide choice of regulated search providers alongside official searches available for me to choose from and turnaround times can vary significantly?
2. Can my supplier cope with Local Authorities adding VAT on different dates and display the costings accurately?
3. Will their quotes and billing be affected by these changes?

The final point is that there will inevitably be issues with searches that are submitted before VAT is applied but are queried or rejected for some reason and on resubmission will have VAT applied. This will of course create service issues so make sure your search provider can cope with this.

Vanessa Moscardo-Parker, Account Director at Landmark Information Group, talks us through RiskView Residential – a brand new all-in-one report for conveyancers available through tmgroup.

tm: RiskView Residential - what is it and who is it for?
V M-P: “RiskView Residential (RVR) is an all-in-one environmental report for residential property transactions that incorporates four Landmark reports into one. Now available through tmgroup, the report is supported by an online viewer so both conveyancers and consumers can log into our system to explore the results further.”

Why is it needed?
“Well, the report tells a conveyancer exactly what they need to know, presenting any risks to the property up-front and in an easy-to-read format. Also, it means you can offer a fixed fee rather than having to keep asking their clients for more money to cover extra reports. Another great aspect of the report is that the online viewer points the buyer in Landmark’s direction to help stream technical questions to the environmental experts, rather than the solicitors advising on the data.

We believe in making time for conveyancers here at tmgroup, how does this new report 'make time' for conveyancers?
“Landmark’s strapline for this report is ‘simple, helpful and accessible’ and that’s exactly what it is. In terms of making time for conveyancers, we’ve been finding that it saves around two thirds of the time it would take for you to check for environmental issues, so it lets you concentrate on other matters. The feedback during testing was that the copy and pastable text was by far the most useful part of the report as it really did save the solicitor and buyer a huge amount of time.”

How can home buyers make use of it?
“Using the online viewer, they’re able to visualise all of the data on one single map and get a better idea of how these factors could affect their purchase. They’re then able to contact the relevant expert for guidance and support to help them interpret the data correctly and answer questions themselves.”

What does the report include?
“The report reveals risks to the property associated with contaminated land and flooding, as well as energy and infrastructure and ground stability.”

What is the standard turnaround time?
“The same as a normal environmental report - turnaround will be 24-48hrs.”

Can you expedite this report?
“There’s no real need to do so as it’s back so quickly.”

What have you got planned for RiskView Residential in the future?
“We believe that the future is online for Landmark and with the majority of industries already using this format, it’s been extremely exciting developing this product. RVR will be developed as we get feedback from clients. The interactive ability of being able to visualise your property, the local area and any impact environmental risks have on your purchase will give the client a greater ability to make their own informed decision in a much better way.”

RiskView Residential
Environmental due diligence for every transaction with one simple report.
If you’d like to start saving time on your environmental property searches, RiskView Residential is now available to order through tmgroup. Contact your account manager or alternatively, call our helpdesk on 0844 249 9200 or email helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk to get started.

About Vanessa
Vanessa Moscardo-Parker joined Landmark Information Group a number of years ago and is now Account Director.  Previously spending a number of years working with the property industry dealing with both new homes developers and housing associations across the country.  Vanessa works nationally for Landmark and is a regular provider of a range of environmental CPD courses for solicitors.

HMRC has decided that local searches should be vatable and, if the proposals do not meet opposition, it is expected that CON29 searches provided by Local Authorities will include VAT from 1st February 2016.

From February 1st 2016, it is expected that VAT will be added to CON29R and O reports.

HMRC has decided that CON29s should be VAT applicable and have proposed to Local Authorities that the 20% charge is applied.

Local Authorities have until 21st January to raise any objections to the VAT charge, however early indications are that the majority will be making the change without objection.

Will this affect the price of local searches?

Although the measures seem likely to be implemented, it is not yet clear how prices will be affected.

Some Local Authorities have indicated that they will absorb the cost of the VAT; some will take the opportunity to review their pricing altogether; some will simply add VAT to their Con29s; and others have yet to decide.

If prices do increase, then it is only the Con29 element of the local search (& any optional questions) that would be affected, as the LLC1 element of the search remains non-vatable.

What does this mean for my clients?

If prices are affected, then it would be prudent for conveyancers to inform clients of this potential increase.

What should I do?
We will keep you informed, giving you as much notice as possible if the proposed changes do go ahead.

Rest assured that if the prices of local searches are increased, VAT will be added at the point of order as with other searches and you need make no other change.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact your account manager or the helpdesk by calling 0844 249 9200 or emailing helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk

To quote Richard Burton in the film ‘Where Eagles Dare’: “A hole, is a hole, is a hole as they say.”

But I suspect the residents of St Albans, Gosforth and Manchester may disagree with that assessment after sinkholes appeared in their neighbourhoods. Just imagine if these had occurred only a few meters away under a house rather than in the street.

With ground stability, or should that be instability, grabbing headlines in the last few months tmgroup asked solicitors, “After the recent sinkholes in St Albans and Gosforth which have been in the news have you made any provision to make ground (in)stability information available to your conveyancing customers?”

Local searches are an essential part of the conveyancing process and can reveal vital information to people looking to move house. tmgroup Managing Director Paul Albone explained to BBC Wiltshire exactly what a Local Authority search is and why they've been holding up property transactions in Wiltshire.

What is a local authority search? 

"It's generally information that's sourced from the local authority - there's more than 300 of those across England and Wales - and [the local search] provides information that's relational to your property and your local environment."

Why is it an essential part of the conveyancing process?

"When you're moving into a house, you might fall in love with it but you don't actually know what's going on around your neighbourhood; or the ownership and plans for development on that property, so it [the local search] really exposes that type of information to you [the buyer]."

What sort of problems can it flag up?

"For instance: you're moving into a new house and it's got a massive oak tree in the back garden. The first thing you're going to do is get a tree surgeon to take that [away] to give you some more light in the kitchen. One of the things that can happen is that you've got a tree preservation order on it so you won't be able to do that."

"Or you're choosing that house because there's a similar property down the road and there's a nice single-storey extension that'd be great for a kids' playroom; you could move in and find that it didn't have planning permission; building regs. haven't been signed off so you'll be liable for that cost and, at worst, be told to demolish the extension."

On average, how long can it take for a local authority search to come back with the answers that you need?

"Massive variation here, bit of a postcode lottery I'm afraid... the quickest is in less than half a day; the worst is over 60 days."

For more information on how long a local search takes, click here.

Listen to the full interview:

We take driving off of our drive and onto the road as a given, we don’t even think about it: we just do it.

But if you have a quick search on the Internet for ‘ransom strips’ I suspect you will surprised how many stories pop up. With a few notable exceptions they are reported in the local rather than national press which may explain why they go under the radar, but they are surprisingly prevalent.

In October we asked conveyancers: “When conducting a commercial property transaction how often do you order a highways property search?”

The results were as follows: