The searches a buyer's solicitor must raise before exchange — because once contracts are exchanged, caveat emptor leaves the buyer with whatever the searches failed to uncover.
Everything in this chapter flows from a single starting point: the seller is under no general duty to disclose physical or legal defects, so the burden of investigation falls squarely on the buyer's side. The chapter opens with caveat emptor and the core standard searches, then works through the local search — the LLC1, the CON29 and what to do when it reveals problems such as an unadopted road. It moves on to drainage, water and environmental searches, including liability for contaminated land and a buyer's options when a risk surfaces before exchange, before covering the searches needed for unregistered land and the surviving traces of chancel repair liability. It closes with the danger posed by occupiers with overriding interests and how overreaching neutralises it, and the location-specific searches — mining, flooding, company sellers and ransom strips — that a standard set would miss.
