"How long will the search take?"
Every solicitor asks it. Every buyer asks the solicitor. And the honest answer — "it depends" — is the answer that makes everyone's eyes glaze over and trust you slightly less.
Here's the thing: "it depends" is usually a cover for not having the actual data. The firms that give useful answers have it. The ones that give ranges don't.
Why you can't control council times — but you can work around them
Official search turnaround is set entirely by the local authority. There are over 300 local authorities in England and Wales — and the number is falling as councils reorganise into unitary authorities — every one moving at its own pace.
Some are fast. A quiet district council with a well-staffed search team and digitised records might come back in two or three working days. A large metropolitan council processing thousands of requests, especially during a busy spring market, might take three weeks. A handful have persistent backlogs that push turnaround to five or six weeks, and they'll still tell you their target is ten working days.
You cannot make a slow council faster. What you can do is not add to the problem with delays inside your own operation — and know enough about each council to give solicitors an honest picture before they ask.
| Search route | Typical turnaround | Who sets the pace |
|---|---|---|
| Personal search firm | 24–72 hours (sometimes same day) | Your operation |
| Official search — fast district council | 2–3 working days | The council |
| Official search — large or busy council | 2–3 weeks | The council |
| Official search — backlogged council | 5–6 weeks or more | The council |
Where most of the time actually goes
Here's what most search firms don't track closely enough: how long the search sits inside their own operation, before the request goes to the council and after the response comes back.
Before the request goes out. The order arrives. The address needs checking and matching to a UPRN. The council requirements need to be confirmed. The boundary plan needs generating. The request needs to be constructed in the right format for that specific council.
If any of those steps are manual and someone's busy, the order waits. Half a day can disappear before anything has left your office. Meanwhile the clock isn't running on the council side — it's running on the solicitor's expectation.
After the response comes back. The council responds. The data needs to go into the report. The report needs checking. If anything is missing or unclear, it needs chasing. Then the report goes out.
In a stretched operation, a completed council response can sit in an inbox for hours while someone works through other things. The search is technically done. The solicitor doesn't know that yet.
The council wait is visible. The time lost inside your firm is invisible — but it's often just as significant.
What good turnaround management looks like
The firms I've seen do this well have three things in common.
They track actual times, not council estimates. The council says five to ten working days. Your data says that specific council has been returning in four days for the last three months, or twelve days since they lost two members of staff. One of those numbers is useful. Track your own actuals by council, not the published SLA.
They send the right request first time. Every rejected or incomplete submission resets the clock. A council that needs the admin ward and doesn't get it doesn't send a helpful reply — it either rejects the request or sits on it. Knowing exactly what each council needs and building it into the request automatically means you're not losing days to avoidable rejections.
They chase before it's a problem, not after. When an order is running close to its expected return time and nothing's come back, the chase goes out then — not when the solicitor calls to ask where it is. That requires a system that's tracking expected return times and flagging approaching deadlines, not relying on someone to remember.
"The solicitors I worked with weren't unreasonable about time. They understood that councils vary. What they couldn't tolerate was not knowing. If something was going to be late, they wanted to know early, with a reason and a new expectation. The firms that called before they were asked never lost the relationship over a delay. The ones that waited to be chased often did."
— Valerie Bennett, Personal Search Veteran · June 2026
The answer solicitors actually need
"Five to ten working days" covers you. It does not help the solicitor, and it does not help their client.
"Preston City Council is currently returning in four working days. We sent the request this morning; you'll have the complete bundle by Thursday" — that's a useful answer. The solicitor can tell the buyer. The buyer can tell their removal company. The chain can plan.
That answer requires that you have the data to back it up. If you're tracking actual council turnaround times in your system, you have it. If you're not, you're guessing — and your solicitors know that, even if they don't say it.
Valio tracks current turnaround by council from live operational data. When you send a request, the expected return date is calculated from what's actually happening at that council, not from what they say should happen.
How council data is managed in Valio → · The full order workflow → · Valio features → · What conveyancing searches cost →