Local Authorities (England) (Charges for Property Searches) Regulations 2008

I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation of the background to these regulations. Indeed, in principle one cannot quarrel with what the Government are trying to do in this field; they are clearly trying to produce a situation that treats everyone equally, which must be admirable, and which is clear and plain so that everyone can understand what is happening. Until now that has not been the case, so to that extent these regulations are thoroughly welcome. They give rise, however, to one or two questions. In life, timing is all. One cannot help but wonder whether the timing of the arrival of these regulations is particularly fortunate. I was going to say that the housing market was in ferment. The trouble is that it is not; it is almost in a state of terminal decline. That is going to cause real problems for the local authorities, because there is no doubt that they will properly have to gear up what I would call their property search departments to cater for the huge demand that there has been in the recent past. That is fine and good, but for anyone working in that sector in local government there is a problem. We know from what mortgage lenders are saying that the number of applications for new mortgages has almost vanished—not completely, but it is way down from where it was. Any local authority now budgeting for next year on the basis proposed in the regulations will have historic costs based on a high volume of inquiries, and a realistic estimate of the number of inquiries next year will probably be no more than 25 per cent of that. That in turn suggests a relatively high charge. If, as the regulations require, you balance the cost with the number of inquiries and produce a charge as a result of that calculation, the cost of an individual search could be relatively very high, especially in comparison with what was happening only a short time ago. At that point, there will be howls of complaint from most consumers about over-inflationary increases in costs. There is a real difficulty here for both local authorities and purchasers. What are the Minister’s thoughts on this? In the present circumstances, we do not want to do anything that might increase the costs of property transactions. There are enough difficulties in the market without adding this one to it. The other oddity that I have come across recently arose at the Land Registry. I declare an interest as a property owner, and it was my own circumstances that produced this question; it is not particularly related to this issue but it is an interesting one. The Land Registry is the other half of the search side that has to be done on a property and its attitude can sometimes be different from that of the local authority. I was not aware of this until I put a property on the market. The property is and always has been two separate cottages, but they are semi-detached on one side. The local authority, quite properly, has two charges on them—they are both rated separately and all the services charges are separate and so on—but, because I am one owner, the Land Registry says that there is only one property. It is an interesting little conundrum. I wonder whether we need to think—not with regard to these regulations; I merely wanted to raise the issue with the Government—about how we deal with that inconsistency. For instance, it could arise if a housing association were selling properties. How would the Land Registry treat what might be hundreds of houses all on a congruent site but with only one owner? Is that one Land Registry search or will it be 100? It is a separate issue but it relates to this general subject. I agree in principle with the wording relating to the new way in which charges are to be calculated, but we have to be careful of some very unfortunate side-effects that may cause an adverse reaction. My personal view is that, while the local authority must publish these figures, as it is required to do, if it is wise it will none the less absorb a large proportion of the otherwise huge increase in unit cost that will arise in the coming year in order to try to keep search charges down and thus not provide a disincentive for people in the housing market.