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7 out of 10 slowest councils are in the South East
1 August 2008
It takes almost three weeks longer to buy a house in Hillingdon than in
Crawley
Seven out of the ten slowest councils for search turnaround times are located in the South East, according to the latest figures* issued by LMS, the UK's leading provider of HIPs, outsourced conveyancing, remortgage, survey and valuation services.
The London Borough of Hillingdon has been named the worst council, taking an average of 17.33 working days to provide search data. This is almost 5 times longer than it takes the best ranked, Crawley Borough Council, which spends on average 3.56 days compiling the information.
These search turnaround figures are the monthly averages calculated using transactions in the
past year and a half. However, in some months councils were far slower. For instance in June
2008 Hillingdon Borough Council took a staggering 44 days, almost nine weeks, to compile the
necessary data. Another example is Hastings Borough Council whose average search
turnaround time was over 32 working days in May of this year.
The national average search turnaround time is 7.04 days, over 10 days quicker than the London Borough of Hillingdon. These figures demonstrate the radical regional differences from council to council in the time taken to obtain the necessary information needed to sell a house.
Table of worst search turnaround councils in England:
