Local Land Charges

After a very busy and challenging year, we are delighted to inform all of our customers involved with the house buying process that we have worked extremely hard in order to reduce our turnaround to four working days. If a search is requested as a personal search request, we will ensure that the agent receives this information in parity with a Local Land Charge Search. Due to GDPR we are unable to provide any specific information regarding your search, but rest assured we will have completed them in a timely manner as we no longer have a backlog.

Stamp Duty Holiday

The Stamp Duty Level was raised from £125,000 to £500,000 in July 2020. This break came to an end on 30 June 2021. Until the end of September 2021 there is a staggered return to the previous stamp duty rates, which means you will not pay stamp duty on the first £250,000. From 1 October 2021 onwards all rates are due to return to normal.

With this next step in mind, the West Lindsey District Council Local Land Charges team want to reassure all our customers involved with the house buying process that we have worked extremely hard over the last few months to reduce our turnaround to an acceptable level of four working days. Whilst we cannot guarantee a property sale will be completed by 30 September 2021, we can advise that searches requested from us before 22 September 2021 will be returned prior to the end of the stamp duty holiday. If a search is requested as a personal search request, we will ensure that the agent receives this information in parity with a Local Charge Search.

The Local Land Charge Unit has two main functions:

To maintain a register known as the Local Land Charges Register as required by the Local Land Charges Act 1975.
To carry out searches of the Local Land Charge register and respond to applications for the Local Authority Searches submitted by solicitors and conveyancers as part of the Conveyancing procedure. A local authority search provides relevant property information held by the council which can include:

Planning Permissions history
Building Control history
Highways status and proposed works
Environmental Health Notices
Public Protection (Environmental Health) Notices

If your search is for an auction, please ensure that you clearly mark the date of the auction on the front of the search so that we can ensure that it is returned in time.

Personal Search Procedures

Appointments must be arranged in advance by contacting the team at locallandcharges@west-lindsey.gov.uk. Appointments are for 1 hour duration with an unlimited number of searches per appointment. The last available appointment will be 1 hour before our normal office closing time (except Wednesdays 3.00pm and Fridays 4pm appointments being 30 minutes).

Full details, including office opening times