The government’s decision to scrap the fee for personal searches of the local land charges register will benefit no one and will add to the financial pressure on local government, lawyers have warned.

Housing minister Grant Shapps announced last week that the government will abolish the £22 fee charged for people to inspect the land charges register to access information about properties.

Shapps said the change was being introduced to ensure compliance with European law, which requires examination of environmental information free of charge.

He said the move will make key environmental information more accessible to the public, and help reduce costs for home buyers.

‘Moving home is difficult and stressful, and the new government wants to make it easier,’ he said. 'We've already taken steps to scrap home information packs, and now we are cutting the cost of researching the detail about [a] new home.

‘This shows in practice how freeing up public sector data and opening up the books can benefit the whole economy, by cutting transaction costs and increasing competition.'

However, Law Society property spokesman Paul Marsh said: ‘In the context of moving house, the £22 fee is a very small amount. All this will serve to do is take money away from local authorities, which are already facing budget cuts.

‘It’s too early to say what the effect of the change will be, but it could lead some councils to reduce staffing in their land charges departments, which could delay the provision of information.’

George Curran, Law Society council member for local government, said: ‘It’s hard to identify any real benefit to anyone of this move.

‘Government says that it is being done to give effect to European regulations, but when they were adopted the [previous] government didn’t take account of the knock-on effect on local authority budgets.’

He said local authorities already face a reduction in financial support from central government, which has also asked them not to increase council tax.

‘So revoking the £22 fee is simply going to further reduce our income, while we still have the cost involved of providing the service,' he said.

Curran said the easiest solution to provide fast and free access to property information would be to introduce a ‘public facing’ terminal so that people could have direct access to the land charges register.

‘But introducing the technology to provide that requires money,’ he said.

Companies that use personal search services told the Gazette they were uncertain that the change would benefit them.

Andrew Lloyd, managing director at MDA SearchFlow, said the announcement was positive, as it enhanced access to public records, but he doubted it would have a dramatic impact on the private search market because the majority of conveyancers still opt for official searches.

‘The challenge for the private search industry now is to demonstrate that it can provide the quality normally associated with the official search product, in a more cost-effective way,’ said Lloyd. 'The challenge for local authorities is to keep their own search pricing in line with these new market forces.'