Should I use my solicitor to carry out additional searches for a house purchase or find my own?

[Samara26]

Just wondering when buying a house, if people just go with their solicitor for the additional chargeable searches such as environmental and flood risk?

I normally shop around for everything and wondered if some private companies may provide a more comprehensive report for the same money, as everything is expensive when it comes to solicitors.

Or maybe it's just not worth it. Please let me know what you did?

Our solicitor did them. No extra charge, just all as part of the standard searches.

Thanks. The flood risk and environmental are at extra cost. I'm just wondering whether to shop around.

I am sure its a standard fee for most searches. You pay your solicitor to examine the risks, check you are buying what you think you are buying and report back to you so you'd shop around for the solicitor rather than the searches.

The flood risk one is free to do on the EA website but if it has flooded this will be on the particulars of sale by the seller and this information 'should' have been communicated by the estate agent or seller at the viewing so just ask both of them. (recent post on estate agent who didn't pass on this information to a buyer would make me want to speak to the seller)

www.gov.uk/government/publications/flood-risk-maps-2019
www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk

Getting an insurance quote might identify some issues along with a search of local news on flooding or past history of land use. Old maps can help with this. I didn't buy a house with a filled in mine shaft in the garden which was identified by my solicitors.

Thanks that's a very good point! What is the EA website?

If they aren’t included (ours were) I would do pay and get them done. Our environmental survey highlighted historical issues with soil contamination - I won’t be growing veg, and our flood risk highlighted flood prevention works alongside historical low risk which aided insurance quotes to be lower than previously expected. Shop around if you want, but I would not expect the costs to differ enough to be worth the hassle and time of doing so in an already stressful process. Although you can check on line for mining and flood issues for free, the solicitor came back with slightly more info than I had found online.

Thanks, great advice!

I normally shop around for everything and wondered if some private companies may provide a more comprehensive report for the same money, as everything is expensive when it comes to solicitors.
Solicitors do hundreds of searches a month. You will be doing a one-off. It's unlikely that you will get a better rate than the solicitor.
Before they start work the solicitors will send you an engagement letter which will detail the cost of known, definable extras (such as searches) so there will be no surprises.

Solicitors aren't really that expensive. The work they do is invaluable - to ensure that your purchase is legally watertight; so that you do actually end up owning what you are paying hundreds of thousands of pounds for, and don't get scammed. They are about the only people in the conveyancing process who are truly on your side (compare Estate Agents, surveyors, mortgagors, etc) and their fees are usually a very small percentage of the purchase price.

Spend your effort on finding the right solicitor, not on quibbling about search fees.