Searches and the legal work

Title: what is owned, and how

The register records who owns the land, the extent of it, and the rights and burdens that travel with it. Reading it is the first task, because everything else in the transaction depends on the answer.

Tenure matters more than any other single line. Owning the land outright is a different proposition from owning a lease of a defined period, which brings a landlord, a service charge, obligations about alterations, and a term that shortens every year.

Searches, and what each is for

The local authority search asks the council what it knows about the property and its immediate surroundings: planning decisions, building regulation records, road status, and whether any notices or schemes affect it. Its most valuable answers are often about the road outside and whether it is publicly maintained.

The drainage and water enquiry establishes whether the property is connected to public sewers and mains water, and whether public drains run under the building, which constrains extensions.

Environmental searches look at contamination history, flood risk and ground stability. In areas with a mining or industrial past, additional specific searches follow the local pattern.

Covenants, easements and other people's rights

Restrictive covenants limit what an owner may do, sometimes sensibly and sometimes as a fossil of a nineteenth-century estate plan. Positive covenants require an owner to do something, such as maintain a shared fence or contribute to a private road.

Easements are rights over land: a neighbour's right of way across a drive, a right to run drainage under a garden, or a right of light. They do not disappear because they are inconvenient, and they usually survive changes of ownership.

Boundaries, which are vaguer than people expect

Registered plans show general boundaries, not precise lines. A plan is not a surveyor's measurement, and the fence on the ground may not sit where the plan implies. Where a boundary matters, for example because an extension is planned, the question is settled by evidence and agreement rather than by pointing at the plan.

Enquiries: the stage that consumes the calendar

Enquiries are the buyer's questions arising from the title, the searches, the forms and the survey. They accumulate: an alteration with no building regulation record, a guarantee that cannot be found, a shared drive with no written arrangement, an extension that crosses a drain.

Most sales that feel stalled are sitting in enquiries, waiting for a document somebody cannot locate. This is the strongest practical argument for a seller assembling paperwork before listing rather than after an offer.

Exchange, and why it is treated so formally

Exchange converts a set of intentions into a binding contract with a fixed date. Before it, either side can withdraw for any reason at no legal cost. After it, withdrawal has serious financial consequences. That single asymmetry explains most of the caution in the weeks beforehand.