Harrogate Borough Council has increased the average time to complete land searches from 30 working days to up to seven weeks.
The council has asked those waiting to be patient and request a land search as early as possible.
An increase in demand, a backlog of searches from the first lockdown and struggles with staff numbers have all put strain on the process.
The Stray Ferret has reported the frustration of homebuyers and agents over the last month, who all disputed the council’s previous 30 working days time scale.
Read more:
- District’s homebuyers and agents furious over search delays
- Harrogate council urges homebuyers to be patient
Some claim to have put in requests at the end of summer to be told that it won’t be cleared until December.
Harrogate Borough Council put an updated on their social media channels to say the the waiting time had increased:
“We are doing everything we can to reduce the processing times for local land charge searches.
“It is currently taking between six and seven weeks on average for us to complete our part of the searches process.”
Now that the current lockdown is coming to an end the council is opening the civic centre to allow personal searches to take place.
James Wort, a director at Strutt and Parker, previously told the Stray Ferret that his clients have experienced delays up to 90 days:
“I can give about 17 examples where the search delays have been three times what the council have said.
“We have emails from the council saying that requests from September will be complate by December. But they say it’s not true. It’s scandalous. “
