Council search delays are slowing UK house sales in 2026

What just changed?

Two things, and they pull in different directions. On 15 May 2026, Property Industry Eye reported that Local Authority search turnaround times in parts of England had stretched to as much as 92 working days, based on an analysis by House Buyer Bureau ranking councils against their turnaround two years earlier.

Since then the picture has been filled in. Research from Rightmove reported on 9 September 2026 asked home movers what actually delayed them, and searches came fourth. That does not make the slow councils any faster. It does mean a seller worrying about searches is often worrying about the wrong stage.

What is a Local Authority Search?

A Local Authority Search is a set of formal enquiries that a buyer's conveyancer sends to the council where a property sits. It pulls together planning history, road and drainage information, listed-status flags, building regulations records, and any local restrictions that affect the property. Mortgage lenders treat the search result as a condition of releasing funds, so a sale almost never exchanges without it.

Which councils are slowest?

House Buyer Bureau's 15 May 2026 analysis ranks turnaround times across councils in England and Wales. The longest wait is at Bracknell Forest, attributed in the report to IT system issues. Camden, Merton and Rochdale are joint second at 52 working days each, with Merton specifically up 42 working days on its 2024 turnaround.

Where do searches sit among all the causes of delay?

This is the part that has come into focus since the spring. Rightmove asked movers where their transaction actually got stuck, and the answer was not mainly the council.

Read the two tables together and the honest position is this. Searches are the worst single stage in a handful of unlucky postcodes, and a manageable one everywhere else. If you are in a Bracknell Forest or a Camden, plan around it. If you are not, spend your energy on the conveyancing stage instead, because that is where most moves lose their weeks.

Why are searches taking this long?

The House Buyer Bureau report attributes the Bracknell Forest delay to IT system issues. Beyond that single named cause, the report does not break down council-specific reasons across the list. Councils manage searches under their own staffing and software setups, so delays are not uniform: some authorities are still returning searches in their old two-to-four-week window while others have lengthened sharply.

How long is a move actually taking now?

Longer than most sellers plan for. Rightmove reported on 31 July 2026 that the average move in Great Britain takes 216 days from listing to completion, made up of 62 days to find a buyer and 154 days to get the move done. That was the longest at that point in the year since its records began.

The type of home matters too. Flats took 169 days to complete a move against 149 days for terraced and semi-detached houses, and the whole process now runs 36 days longer than it did in 2019, an increase of 31%.

Against a 154-day completion stage, a 92-working-day search is roughly 18 weeks and swallows the lot. A 52-working-day search is about ten weeks, which is survivable but leaves very little room for anything else to go wrong.

What does this mean for my house sale?

The knock-on effects land in four places, and they compound rather than queue.

• Mortgage offers, typically valid for six months from issue, can expire before exchange. The buyer then re-applies at whatever rate is available that day, which may be higher.
• Searches themselves can expire. Most lenders treat a search as stale after about six months, so a long completion stage can mean paying for the same paperwork twice.
• Chains break when one slow link runs out of patience. A buyer two doors down loses their seller, and the chain unravels.
• Costs accumulate: bridging interest, double-running utilities, storage, and rental top-ups while the move drifts past its planned date.

What can sellers do to protect their sale?

1. Find out which council the property sits under before listing. A single street can straddle two boroughs, and the postcode alone does not always answer the question.
2. Check whether that council currently has a long backlog. House Buyer Bureau's 15 May 2026 list names the slowest authorities, and agents and conveyancers will usually know the local picture.
3. Instruct a conveyancer the same week the property is listed. Many conveyancers will not order or chase searches until they are formally instructed, so the clock does not start until then.
4. Order searches the day an offer is accepted. The buyer's side runs the search, but seller-led pre-ordered searches are offered by upfront-information firms and your solicitor can advise.
5. Watch the conveyancing stage at least as closely as the search. It is the biggest single source of delay for 37% of movers, and it is the stage where chasing actually changes the outcome.
6. Ask any agent valuing the home what their average sale-to-completion time has been in that postcode this year. The number is real, and a good agent will know it.
7. Keep mortgage offers and searches warm. If either is approaching its six-month limit, prompt the chain to refresh it before it lapses.

Is anything being done about it?

Yes, although not quickly. The government's home buying and selling reform roadmap, published on 19 June 2026, is built around moving key property information to the front of the process so that searches and other paperwork are gathered before a buyer is found rather than after.

The roadmap also sets out a later step, making binding conditional contracts a requirement once those upfront sales packs are established, so that a deal held up by paperwork is less likely to collapse while everyone waits. None of it changes a search booked this month, and the timetable runs across this Parliament rather than this year.

In the slowest boroughs the council search alone can absorb the whole 154-day completion stage. Everywhere else, the weeks are usually lost somewhere quieter.

Where ValuQ fits in

ValuQ gives UK homeowners free, side-by-side property valuations from competing local estate agents. Two things come into focus when a move averages 216 days: the agent's experience in that specific postcode, and their real sale-to-completion time. When sellers compare agents on the platform, those numbers can be part of the brief and part of the decision, without the seller handing over a phone number to find out.