Most searches you handle are the same three forms in the same order. Then an instruction lands for a property in an old mining village, and there's a fourth one that has to be on the bundle.
The coal mining search. The CON29M.
It's not difficult to order. The trouble is recognising when it's needed in the first place — because a property two streets outside the coalfield doesn't need one, and a property two streets inside it does. Miss it, and the bundle goes out incomplete.
Here's when a coal mining search is required, what the CON29M actually covers, and how to handle the awkward cases without declining the instruction.
When is a coal mining search needed?
A coal mining search is needed when a property sits within a coalfield or coal mining affected area, as defined by the Mining Remediation Authority. If the address falls inside one of those areas, the CON29M should be ordered as standard. Most lenders and conveyancers expect it for affected properties. Around one in four properties in Britain sits on the coalfield — one in two in Scotland — so this is far from a niche search.
The affected areas aren't a vague band across the north and the Midlands. They're mapped. The Mining Remediation Authority holds the definitive data on where past, present and prospective coal mining makes a search relevant. A property either falls inside an affected area or it doesn't.
That precision is the point. You don't order a CON29M on every search "just in case" — that adds cost the solicitor will query. You order it when the address is in an affected area. So the real skill is knowing, reliably, which of your incoming addresses are.
What does the CON29M coal mining search cover?
The CON29M covers the coal mining risks attached to a specific property: past, present and future underground and surface coal mining, ground subsidence, mine shafts and entries, and any past or current compensation claims. It's the standard report that tells a buyer whether mining history affects the land they're buying.
The CON29M coal mining search answers a defined set of enquiries. In practice, the parts that matter most to a conveyancer are these.
| What the CON29M reports | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Past underground coal mining | Old workings under the property that may affect stability |
| Present and future coal mining | Whether mining is planned or licensed nearby |
| Mine entries (shafts and adits) | Shafts on or near the property — a key subsidence and safety factor |
| Ground subsidence | Recorded subsidence and any related claims |
| Coal mining subsidence claims | Past damage notices, claims and remedial works |
| Compensation and withdrawal of support | Whether rights to withdraw support exist over the land |
For most affected properties the report comes back clear, or with historic workings deep enough that they're noted but not a concern. The interpretive cases — a shaft close to the boundary, an active claim, mixed mineral ground — are where it gets involved. That's also where the temptation to guess creeps in.
How does a search firm avoid missing the coal mining search?
The most common operational failure isn't doing the CON29M badly — it's not ordering it at all. The fix is recognising coalfield postcodes at intake, before the bundle is built, so an affected address automatically flags the CON29M as a required line item rather than relying on someone to remember.
This is where memory-based working quietly fails. Someone on the team knows the local coalfield. They flag the mining searches by hand. It works fine. Then they're off for a week, or they leave, and a property in an affected area goes out with three searches when it needed four.
The conveyancer catches it, sends it back, and now you're explaining a delay you caused. Or, in the bad version, nobody catches it and an undisclosed mining risk follows the property to completion.
The defence is making it systematic. The address gets checked against the affected-area data at the point of intake, not at the point of someone remembering. When the postcode falls inside a coalfield, the CON29M is on the bundle by default and has to be actively removed, not actively added.
"The mining search going missing was almost never someone doing the search wrong. It was the bundle being built by someone who didn't know that particular village was over old workings. The person who knew was on holiday. That's not a knowledge problem you fix with training — it's one you fix by not relying on a single person's memory."
— Valerie Bennett, Personal Search Veteran · June 2026
This is the same pattern as the council knowledge problem: the operation runs on what one or two people happen to know, and it holds right up until it doesn't.
How should you handle the tricky coal mining cases?
For the edge cases — interpretive reports, mine entry assessments, mixed mineral or non-coal mining ground — subcontract to a specialist rather than declining the instruction. You take the order and keep the client; a partner with the right expertise handles the interpretation; you return the complete bundle under your brand. The instruction never has to leave you.
The straightforward affected address is routine. You order the CON29M, it comes back, it goes in the bundle. No specialist needed.
The cases worth a specialist are narrower: where the report flags a shaft near the property and the buyer wants it interpreted, where there's an active subsidence claim, or where the ground involves minerals beyond coal that the CON29M doesn't fully cover. Trying to advise on those yourself is how a firm ends up out of its depth on a report it shouldn't have answered.
That's exactly what a managed network is for. You don't have to build mining expertise in-house to take mining work. You build the relationship once, then subcontract the specialist part when a case calls for it, while staying brand of record throughout. Declining the whole instruction because of one tricky line is the option that costs you the client.
Key takeaways
A coal mining search is the CON29M, and it's needed for property in a coalfield or affected area as mapped by the Mining Remediation Authority, formerly the Coal Authority. The report covers past, present and future coal mining, subsidence, mine shafts and entries, and claims.
The operational risk lives at intake, not in the search itself. Recognise the affected postcodes systematically so the CON29M never gets left off the bundle by someone who didn't know the area. And for the interpretive edge cases, subcontract to a specialist rather than turning the work away.
Get those two things right and coal mining searches stop being the form that occasionally catches you out. They become just another line on the bundle.
How the Valio network works → · Subcontracting searches the right way → · Running a personal search business → · What is a chancel repair search? →