Deedsum › Local authority search
Disbursements
What a local authority search costs
The same statutory search, LLC1 and CON29, priced council by council. You do not choose your council.
The local authority search is two documents your conveyancer orders from the council: the LLC1, which lists the charges registered against the property, and the CON29, which answers a standard set of questions about roads, planning and enforcement. Almost every purchase needs one, and a mortgage lender will insist on it. It is the same statutory product wherever you buy, and yet the price runs £74.50 to £263.75 across the eight councils we track, set entirely by the council the house sits in.
You do not choose your council. The dearest full search we track costs more than three times the cheapest, for the same searches, decided by nothing but the postcode. It is the single biggest reason two honest quotes on the same house can differ by well over a hundred pounds before anyone has done anything wrong.
The search fee, council by council
The eight councils we read, in alphabetical order. Each figure is from the council's own page, read on the date at the top of this page. Two of them no longer sell the LLC1 at all, noted in the last column, so their figures are not a straight full-search price.
| Council | Published fee | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| Birmingham City Council | £151.00 | Full search: LLC1 and CON29 |
| Bracknell Forest Council | £171 | Full search: LLC1 and CON29 |
| Bristol City Council | £99.92 | CON29 only; the LLC1 comes from HM Land Registry |
| Cornwall Council | £263.75 | Full search: LLC1 and CON29 |
| Leeds City Council | £90.52 | Pack: LLC1 via HM Land Registry, plus the council's CON29 |
| Manchester City Council | £74.50 | Full search: LLC1 and CON29 |
| Newcastle City Council | £165.10 | Full search: LLC1 and CON29 |
| Westminster City Council | £252 | Full search: LLC1 and CON29, VAT not stated |
The postcode lottery
The cheapest full search in the set, and the reason is Manchester's LLC1 at £8.50 where some councils charge four or five times that. Nothing about the house is different. The council is.
The dearest in the set, and it is the enquiries half that does it at £233.75 on its own. A buyer in Cornwall pays nearly £190 more than a buyer in Manchester for the same statutory search, before a single solicitor has been chosen.
Why this is slowly changing
Some councils have handed their charges register to HM Land Registry, and where that has happened the statutory half of the search, the LLC1, comes from the Land Registry at a single national price of £15 instead of from the council.
Bristol is a glimpse of where this is all going. Its charges register moved to HM Land Registry in 2023, so the council now sells only the enquiries half and the statutory half comes from the Land Registry instead. Two bills, not one, and a quote built on a single "council search" line will not match.
Leeds sells a pack rather than two separate fees, because its charges register has moved to HM Land Registry and Leeds buys that certificate for you. The VAT line looks odd for a reason: only the enquiries half of the pack is taxed.
Watch the VAT line
Most councils say whether their fee includes VAT. One in our set does not.
Westminster publishes the fee and, alone in the set, says nothing at all about VAT. So we cannot tell you whether £252 is the final figure or the figure before twenty per cent, and we are not going to guess at it. Ask before you budget.
One line of a longer bill
The search is a disbursement, one of several fixed costs paid out on your behalf alongside the legal fee and the tax. The full breakdown is on the conveyancing fees page.
Questions people ask
How much is a local authority search?
It depends entirely on the council, because each one sets its own fee for the same statutory search. Across the councils we track the full search runs from about seventy-five to over two hundred and sixty pounds. The figure on your quote is set by the postcode, not by your solicitor.
Why is the search fee different in different areas?
Because the fee is set by each local authority, not nationally, and they charge very different amounts for the same LLC1 and CON29. You cannot shop around for it: the search has to come from the council the property is in.
Is the local authority search compulsory?
A mortgage lender will require one, so in practice almost every buyer has it. A cash buyer can in theory skip it, but they take on the risk of whatever it would have revealed, which is why it is rarely a good idea.