Every conveyancer knows the feeling. The file is progressing well, deadlines are manageable, and then something surfaces in the search data that doesn’t quite fit.

A conflicting record. A missing detail. A query that arrives too late to resolve cleanly. These moments rarely come from nowhere. More often they’re the predictable consequence of a gap in the data, something that was available but not caught, or available but not ordered.

Here are four of the risks that appear most consistently, and what good search data looks like in each case.

Planning history that doesn’t travel with the property

Planning records are among the most commonly misread elements in a local authority search – not because the data is wrong, but because it requires interpretation. A restriction that applied to a previous use, a consent that was granted but never implemented, a condition attached to an older permission that the current owner has quietly ignored – none of these are hidden. They’re in the data. But they require someone to look at the full picture rather than the headline.

The risk is greatest on properties with complex histories: former commercial uses, extensions built under permitted development, conversions from one use class to another. In conservation areas, the detail required is even more precise – not just whether works were approved, but whether they were approved under the correct consent route.

The search data should surface this. If it doesn’t, the problem isn’t the planning history – it’s the search.

Rights of way that aren’t visible on site

Public rights of way are a good example of a risk that feels theoretical until it isn’t. A right of way that crosses a garden or driveway doesn’t affect every transaction – but when it does affect one, and the buyer wasn’t told, the consequences are significant and the firm’s position is uncomfortable.

The challenge is that rights of way aren’t always visible on the ground. A path that hasn’t been walked in years is still legally protected. A route that’s been physically blocked by a previous owner remains on the definitive map. The seller may be entirely unaware.

A local authority search will include rights of way data, but the quality of that data varies considerably depending on the source and how recently it was verified. Knowing where your provider’s data comes from, and how current it is, matters more for this particular risk than almost any other.

Chancel repair liability on older rural stock

Chancel repair liability is one of those risks that experienced conveyancers are well aware of and occasionally encounter in practice. The liability, which can require a property owner to contribute to the cost of repairing the chancel of a local parish church, dates from medieval land law and is tied to the land rather than the owner’s beliefs or connection to the church.

Since 2013, unregistered chancel repair liability is no longer an overriding interest, meaning it must be registered to bind a purchaser. But for properties that changed hands before that date, registered liability can still exist and still bite.

The appropriate response is straightforward, a chancel search where the risk exists, and indemnity insurance where it’s warranted. The less straightforward part is identifying which properties warrant the extra step. Rural properties, older stock, and land near historic parish churches are the obvious candidates. The search data should prompt the question.

Flood risk that isn’t reflected in the asking price

Flooding is increasingly well understood as a property risk, but the gap between what a standard environmental search flags and what a property is genuinely exposed to has widened as climate patterns have shifted. A property that last flooded in 1987 may carry a lower risk rating than one that flooded in 2020 – but both carry risk, and neither is necessarily reflected in what the seller has disclosed.

The specific risk that catches firms out most often isn’t river or coastal flooding, which tends to be well mapped. It’s surface water flooding, the kind that results from drainage systems being overwhelmed during heavy rainfall, which is harder to model, less consistently reported, and increasingly common in areas that haven’t historically been considered at risk.

An environmental search that draws on current flood mapping, drainage records, and historical incident data gives a materially different picture from one that relies on older datasets. The difference matters when you’re advising a client on whether to proceed and on what terms.

What connects all four

None of these risks are obscure. Every conveyancer reading this will have encountered at least one of them in practice. What connects them is that they’re all data problems before they’re legal problems – and in each case, the quality and currency of the search data determines whether the issue surfaces at the right moment or the wrong one.

The search isn’t just a regulatory requirement. It’s the foundation on which advice is built. It’s worth knowing exactly what yours is built on.

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For a closer look at how search data quality affects conveyancing outcomes – and what to look for when assessing your current provider – download our guide.

Scotland’s 18 years of experience with Home Reports suggest that upfront information can improve certainty, reduce late-stage surprises and become an everyday part of the transaction process.

As England and Wales prepare for their own reforms, Scotland offers a real-world case study of what works, what doesn’t, and why successful reform requires more than simply introducing yet another document.

In From Home Reports to reform: what both nations can teach each other, the latest episode of Landmark Talk’s Property’s ‘Cross-Border Conveyancing Chats’ series, hosts Liz Jarvis and Richard Hepburn compare notes from either side of the border.

Richard has watched Scotland’s Home Reports operate since they launched in December 2008; Liz has lived (and worked) through England’s initial attempt at a similar idea with Home Information Packs (HIPs), introduced in 2007 and abruptly scrapped in 2010. Between them, they map out what made upfront information work – and what got in the way.

Scotland’s reforms had sceptics too

It’s tempting to assume Scotland got this right the first time. It didn’t.

When Home Reports launched at the end of 2008 – requiring sellers to commission a pack before listing, including a single survey and valuation, an energy report and a property questionnaire – the market response was familiar: scepticism about cost, doubt that surveyors had the capacity, worry that listings would slow down, and uncertainty over whether lenders and consumers would actually trust the reports. The launch also landed in the middle of the 2008 recession, muddying the picture further.

“There was a lot of mixed views and a lot of scepticism about how it might land… I mean, the impact of the reports, people may have blamed things on the report which weren’t actually caused by the reports,” says Richard.

Turnaround times were an early problem as surveyors adjusted from condition surveys to full Home Reports. The seller’s property questionnaire – completed by the seller themselves – was inconsistent in quality. None of this was resolved overnight.

The turning point: making it part of the process, not a bolt-on

The single biggest factor in Scotland’s success wasn’t the report itself. It was 2015, when the Home Report was written into the Scottish Standard Missives – the standard sale and purchase contract – so the seller’s questionnaire had to be formally warranted as part of the deal.

As Richard says: “you’ve immediately then got a bridge across between what might just look like a kind of marketing information document and something which actually has a real purpose in the transaction.”

That’s the lesson Richard thinks England and Wales haven’t fully absorbed yet: it isn’t enough to produce a report. Every professional in the chain – conveyancers, agents, surveyors, lenders – has to adjust how they work around it. Reform succeeds as a system change, not simply the introduction of another document.

Why HIPs didn’t survive

Liz believes one of the biggest reasons HIPs failed is that they never had enough time to bed in. There was no cross-party political agreement, a phased rollout that started with four-bedroom-plus properties, and then a change of government before momentum built.

“Everybody agreed, nobody ever disagreed, with the concept of bringing information to the front of the transaction,” says Liz. “That was never the issue… It was really around allowing it to run for long enough for people to become more familiar with it.”

The difference this time, both agree, is that the current MHCLG reforms have cross-party backing and have gone through far broader industry consultation – which matters, because the alternative is repeating a two-decade-old mistake. The environment is also very different to 2007, with far greater emphasis on digital processes, collaboration and data sharing across the property sector.

The industry isn’t waiting for legislation

Perhaps the most practical takeaway from the episode is that Scotland’s experience argues strongly against a wait-and-see approach. Liz points to Project 28 – the cross-industry charter that Landmark Information Group co-founded, with OneSearch also among its members – as proof that the sector is already organising itself ahead of legislation, not after it.

The charter’s eight commitments are built around one headline ambition: bringing the average transaction down to 28 days. Landmark will mark the charter’s first year of operation with an anniversary panel event on September 10th in Central London.

As Liz says: “we really do not want to let the grass grow under our feet when there’s an inevitability around it… The sooner you get there, the better chance of success you have for winning market share.”

Legislation, as Richard puts it, tends to set the floor rather than drive the culture change. That thinking sits at the heart of initiatives such as Project 28, where firms are already exploring how earlier information, better-connected processes and greater collaboration can improve transaction certainty ahead of any proposed legislative change. Those already adapting their workflows are likely to be better prepared when the reforms arrive.

The takeaway

Asked for the one message every conveyancer or property professional should take from Scotland’s 18 years of experience, Liz didn’t hesitate:

“Build at the beginning, don’t try and rescue at the end.”

Liz Jarvis

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Watch the full conversation now – From Home Reports to reform: what both nations can teach each other, episode 2 of Cross-Border Conveyancing Chats, for the complete discussion, including the myths still holding upfront information back in England and Wales.

Available on Spotify and YouTube.

One consent. Compulsory purchase powers, planning permission, listed building consent, highway works authority – all in a single document.

A Development Consent Order is how a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project actually gets permission to be built. It’s a single instrument that can carry an enormous amount of legal weight, and for anyone with land in a scheme’s path, knowing how the process works – and when to get involved – matters a great deal.

Here’s how a DCO is granted, what it can contain, and what it means for landowners along the way.

What is a DCO?

Introduced by the Planning Act 2008 in the wake of the protracted Heathrow Terminal 5 inquiry, the Development Consent Order was designed to replace a patchwork of separate applications – planning permission, compulsory purchase order, listed building consent, highway authorisations – with a single order covering everything a project needs. Rather than an applicant seeking each consent from a different body, one DCO application, examined by the Planning Inspectorate and decided by the Secretary of State, can grant the lot at once.

That consolidation is the whole point of the regime: fewer processes, one timetable, one decision.

What can a DCO actually contain?

Beyond planning permission for the development itself, a DCO can include powers relating to highway works, discharging water, surveying and investigating land, protecting buildings, felling trees and removing hedgerows, extinguishing or diverting public rights of way, and – significantly – land acquisition powers, including compulsory acquisition, the power to override easements, and the power to take temporary possession of land during construction.

In effect, a single DCO can do the legal work of several separate consents and orders that would otherwise each need their own application, their own consultation, and their own decision-maker.

How is a DCO granted? The six stages

The process runs through six defined stages, each with its own statutory timescale: pre-application, acceptance, pre-examination, examination, decision, and post-decision. It’s a front-loaded process – the applicant must fully scope the scheme and consult widely, including with statutory consultees, local authorities, landowners and tenants, and the public, before the application is even submitted for acceptance.

Once accepted, the Planning Inspectorate examines the application, typically over a period of months, before making a recommendation to the relevant Secretary of State, who takes the final decision. Government’s target for the whole process, from acceptance to decision, is around 12 to 15 months – a significant reduction from the multi-year timescales that preceded the 2008 Act.

How do you get a say?

Relevant local authorities automatically become Interested Parties. Anyone else – a landowner, a tenant, a member of the public – has to formally register as an Interested Party during a minimum 28-day registration window, which is what gives someone the right to submit written representations and request to speak during the examination. Missing that window is a real risk: registration isn’t a formality, and someone directly affected by a scheme who doesn’t register in time can lose their formal route to be heard.

What about compulsory acquisition specifically?

Sections 122 to 134 of the Planning Act 2008 set out both the ability to include compulsory acquisition powers within a DCO and the specific conditions that must be satisfied before those powers can be granted. A DCO’s compulsory acquisition function is legally separate from its planning function – the two are assessed against different tests, even though they’re delivered through the same order. Where the conditions are met, this route avoids the applicant needing to seek a separate, standalone compulsory purchase order.

How is this different from a standard CPO?

A conventional compulsory purchase order is a standalone process for one scheme, brought by one authority, under its own dedicated legislation. A DCO’s compulsory acquisition powers are one element within a much larger, bundled consent – so land might be compulsorily acquired as an incidental part of a decision that’s primarily about granting planning permission for the wider infrastructure scheme, rather than through a process that was ever solely about the acquisition itself.

Why does this matter for a transaction?

Because so much is decided within a single order, a DCO can affect a property in ways that wouldn’t show up through the usual routes: not just planning permission for a scheme nearby, but compulsory acquisition, rights of way extinguished, or temporary possession of land during construction, all authorised at once. As with NSIPs generally, this sits with the Planning Inspectorate’s national register rather than local authority planning records, so it’s a case where the standard local search won’t necessarily be the tool that reveals it. For any property near a proposed NSIP, checking the national infrastructure register – and understanding the Interested Party registration window if a client wants to have any say – is worth doing well before examination gets underway.

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A DCO isn’t just a bigger planning permission. It’s a fundamentally different legal instrument, capable of granting compulsory acquisition powers, rights of way changes, and construction authorisations all in one document.

For anyone with land near a proposed NSIP, understanding what a DCO can do – and how narrow the window is to formally take part – matters well before a decision is ever made.

Some properties aren’t blighted by what’s happened. They’re blighted by what might.

A road scheme is proposed. A compulsory purchase power exists but hasn‘t been used. The property sits in limbo – too affected to sell at a fair price, not yet acquired by anyone. The blight notice exists for exactly that gap, and it works in a direction most people don’t expect: it lets the owner force the authority to buy.

Here’s how it works, and why it’s sometimes called “reverse compulsory purchase.“

What is a blight notice?

Sections 149 to 171 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 allow a person with a qualifying interest in certain categories of land to require the relevant authority to purchase that interest. Rather than the authority initiating acquisition, as it would under a compulsory purchase order, the owner initiates it themselves. That reversal of the usual sequence is why the mechanism is commonly described as reverse compulsory purchase.

It exists to relieve a specific kind of hardship: land can become effectively unsellable, or only sellable at a heavily discounted price, once a planning or highway proposal makes clear that it may eventually be acquired or affected – long before any actual scheme, or any CPO, materialises. Without the blight notice route, an owner could be left in limbo for years, unable to sell at a fair price and with little certainty about when the position will be resolved.

What counts as “blighted land”?

Not every property near a proposal qualifies. The land has to fall within one of the specific categories set out in Schedule 13 of the Act – a list significantly amended by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 – which covers things like land allocated in development plans for public authority functions, land affected by highway schemes at defined stages, land within new town or urban development designations, and land where compulsory purchase powers exist but haven’t yet been exercised.

Being near a general area of planned change isn’t enough. The land has to sit within one of the defined statutory categories, which is a narrower test than it might first appear.

Who can serve one?

The right is limited to owner-occupiers, not investors or landlords generally. In practice that means: an owner-occupier of a private dwelling, an owner-occupier of business premises below a set rateable value threshold, an owner-occupier of an agricultural unit, a mortgage lender with the power to sell and give immediate possession, or the personal representative of someone who would have qualified before their death.

What do you have to show first?

Beyond the property falling within a blighted land category and the claimant holding a qualifying interest, the owner generally has to show they made reasonable efforts to sell the property and could only do so, if at all, at a price substantially lower than it would fetch without the blight. That “reasonable endeavours to sell” test sits at the heart of most claims.

There’s an exception. Where the relevant compulsory purchase powers remain exercisable over the land, the owner doesn’t need to demonstrate a failed sale attempt at all – the notice can proceed on that basis alone.

What happens once a notice is served?

The authority can accept the notice, or serve a counter-notice objecting to it on specified statutory grounds within two months. If the owner disagrees with a counter-notice, or with a rejection, they can refer the matter to the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) within a further two months. Where a blight notice takes effect – whether by acceptance, tribunal determination, or the authority simply not responding in time – the authority becomes bound to purchase the interest, and compensation is assessed broadly as if the land had been compulsorily acquired.

How is this different from a Part 1 Land Compensation Act claim?

The two sit at opposite ends of the same problem. A Part 1 claim is made after public works are built and in use, for depreciation caused by their operation – noise, vibration, and the like – with no land changing hands. A blight notice is available before anything is built, in some cases before any scheme is even confirmed, and forces the outright purchase of the land itself rather than compensating for a fall in value while ownership continues.

Put another way: Part 1 compensates you for staying put next to something that now exists. A blight notice gets you out from under something that might.

Why does this matter for a transaction?

For a seller, a blight notice may be the only realistic route to a fair sale if a proposal has made the property genuinely unsellable on the open market. For a buyer, it’s worth knowing whether a seller has already served, or is eligible to serve, a blight notice on a property affected by a nearby scheme – because the availability of a blight notice can depend heavily on who owns and occupies the property at the relevant time, making timing an important consideration

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Blight notices are a narrow, procedural remedy – but where a genuine Schedule 13 designation applies and a sale has failed because of it, they can be the difference between years in limbo and a fair, timely purchase.

Anywhere a planning or highway proposal has cast a long shadow over a property without yet delivering a scheme or a CPO, it’s worth asking whether that shadow meets the statutory test.

Some developments are too big for the local planning system to decide on at all.

A new power station, a major rail scheme, a large reservoir – projects on this scale don’t go through the local authority’s planning committee. They bypass it entirely, decided instead by central government under a completely separate regime. That regime is Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), and understanding why a scheme sits inside it changes where you’d even look to find out about it.

Here’s what makes a project an NSIP, and why that matters for anything nearby.

What is an NSIP?

The Planning Act 2008 created a distinct category of large-scale development in five sectors – energy, transport, water, waste water, and waste – that qualify as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects once they exceed defined statutory thresholds. An onshore generating station over 50 megawatts is a typical example of a threshold test; similar size- or capacity-based tests apply across the other sectors, covering things like electricity generating stations, rail freight interchanges, reservoirs, and hazardous waste facilities.

Since 2013, business and commercial projects that don’t automatically meet a sector threshold can also opt into the regime if the Secretary of State considers them nationally significant, so the category isn’t purely a function of the thresholds; there’s a discretionary route in as well.

Why does size change who decides?

Once a project meets the NSIP threshold, it no longer goes through the local planning authority for permission. Instead, the applicant applies to the Planning Inspectorate, which examines the proposal and makes a recommendation to the relevant Secretary of State, who takes the final decision. This has been the arrangement since April 2012, when the Planning Inspectorate took over the role from the former Infrastructure Planning Commission following the Localism Act 2011.

The logic is straightforward: projects of this scale often cross multiple local authority boundaries, involve national policy priorities that a single council isn’t well placed to weigh, and benefit from a single, consistent consenting process rather than a patchwork of separate local decisions.

What happens to the local authority’s role?

It doesn’t disappear, it changes shape. A host or neighbouring local authority becomes a statutory consultee rather than the decision-maker, and is required to produce a Local Impact Report during the examination stage, setting out the effects the project will have on its area. That report feeds into the Planning Inspectorate’s recommendation, but the authority no longer has the power to grant or refuse permission itself.

How is an NSIP actually authorised?

Through a Development Consent Order (DCO), a single consent that can bundle together permissions that would otherwise need to be applied for separately, including elements of compulsory acquisition. The process from formal acceptance of an application to a decision typically takes over a year, and is front-loaded with substantial pre-application consultation requirements before the Planning Inspectorate will even accept a submission. The mechanics of the DCO process – and what it means for landowners along a scheme’s route – are worth a piece of their own, given how much they involve.

Why does this matter for a property search?

Because an NSIP bypasses the local planning authority, the usual channels a conveyancer relies on for planning history don’t necessarily surface it in the way they would a conventional planning application. A DCO application sits with the Planning Inspectorate’s national register, not the local authority’s planning portal, and a standard local search isn’t necessarily designed to highlight a nationally significant scheme progressing through a separate, centrally administered process.

For any property near a proposed energy, transport, water, or waste scheme of real scale, that’s a reason to check the national register specifically rather than assuming a clean local search means nothing of consequence is coming. It’s also the route by which some of the most substantial compulsory acquisition and blight issues arise – an NSIP’s DCO can carry powers that touch a much wider area than the footprint of the scheme itself.

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An NSIP isn’t defined by controversy or local objection, it’s defined by scale, sector, and a statutory threshold that moves the decision out of local hands entirely.

Knowing a project qualifies as an NSIP tells you immediately where to look for information about it, and it’s rarely the place a standard search would otherwise point you.

A new road opens nearby. Nothing is built on the property; no land is taken… and yet its value can still fall.

Part 1 of the Land Compensation Act 1973 exists for exactly that situation. It’s a compensation right most conveyancers rarely encounter, precisely because it doesn’t involve land being acquired at all – but for properties near new or altered infrastructure, it can matter a great deal.

Here’s what a Part 1 claim actually is, and why it’s a different animal from compulsory purchase.

What is a Part 1 claim?

Where the value of an interest in land is depreciated by physical factors caused by the use of public works, the person with that interest can claim compensation from the authority responsible for the works. This is known as a Part 1 claim, after the part of the 1973 Act that creates the right.

Crucially, no land needs to be taken from the claimant for a Part 1 claim to arise. It’s a form of injurious affection; value lost through the presence and operation of nearby infrastructure, not through anything physically removed from the property. The legislation provides a route to compensation in circumstances where an affected owner may otherwise have limited remedies for depreciation caused by the use of public works.

What counts as a “physical factor”?

The Act sets out a fixed, exhaustive list: noise, vibration, smell, fumes, smoke, artificial lighting, and the discharge of any solid or liquid substance onto the land. Nothing outside that list qualifies, however genuinely a property’s value has been affected – general loss of view, disruption during construction, or a change in character to the area won’t support a claim on their own.

The factors also have to result from the use of the works, not their construction or their mere existence. A new road causing traffic noise can qualify; the fact of a road having been built at all doesn’t.

What counts as “public works”?

The Act covers three categories: any highway, any aerodrome, and any other works or land provided or used under statutory powers – which in practice extends to a wide range of infrastructure delivered by public bodies, from road schemes to certain utility and transport works. Although the statutory responsibility sits with the relevant authority, funding arrangements behind infrastructure schemes can be more complex.

When can a claim be made?

Timing is tightly defined by statute. The “relevant date” is the date a highway first opened to public traffic, or the date other public works were first used after completion. There is a statutory time limit for claims after the relevant date, after which the right may be lost.

There’s a practical logic to the delay before a claim can be brought at all: a claim reflects how a hypothetical buyer would value the property once the works are up and running and their effects can be properly assessed, not a prediction made before anyone knows how the finished scheme will behave. Compensation also isn’t available for factors caused by accidents involving vehicles or aircraft, and generally only one claim can be made per scheme, regardless of later changes in ownership.

How is this different from compulsory purchase compensation?

Compulsory purchase compensation is paid because land has been acquired. A Part 1 claim is paid because land value has fallen, even though nothing has been acquired at all – the two sit either side of a clear line. It’s entirely possible for one property on a scheme to be subject to a CPO, and its neighbour, unaffected by the CPO but sitting beside the finished road, to have a Part 1 claim instead.

Why does this matter for a transaction?

For most properties, this is background law that never becomes relevant. But for anything near a recently completed or altered road, aerodrome, or comparable public works scheme, it’s worth knowing whether a Part 1 claim has already been made and settled on the property – because that can affect whether a further claim is available, and it’s a piece of history a seller may not think to mention unprompted. A buyer relying on a mortgage valuation is unlikely to have this flagged for them; it’s the kind of thing that surfaces through local knowledge, targeted enquiries, or awareness of a nearby scheme’s timeline rather than a standard search return.

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Part 1 of the Land Compensation Act 1973 is a narrow, specific right, one fixed list of physical factors, one class of public works, and a limited window to claim. But where it applies, it’s often the only compensation route available to an owner whose land hasn’t been touched but whose value has been affected regardless.

For any property near a completed or upcoming infrastructure scheme, it’s worth asking the question rather than assuming a clean search means nothing to consider.