The recent cyber-attack on Hackney Council means that they will be unable to process land searches “for the foreseeable future”.
The Council encountered a cyberattack on its ICT systems week beginning 11/10/2020, which has affected the land charges processing system and many other Council systems. The Hackney Land Charges team is not able to process land searches. No Local or Personal Searches applications are being completed at the moment which will have a huge impact on local property sales, for those who are yet to receive their local searches.
Many local home buyers who are yet to receive their local searches, may not be able to meet the stamp duty deadline and it is still unclear whether the government will step in to ensure those affected, will not be penalised by losing out on the savings! We’ve reached out to our local MP and will update you once we’ve had a response.
The Council’s ICT Service is working hard to resolve this issue and will update us as soon as the system is back up and running. Hackney council have stated they “empathise with the needs of its service users and apologise for any inconvenience this will cause.”
This is going to impact many would be home buyers and sellers in Hackney for all search requests – pending and new. Our Head of Sales Progression, Lauretta Caulfield is currently looking into insurance options. This, however, will not be without risk as the local search is the most important search you carry out on a property.
Hackney Council’s website also recommends those proceeding with a house sale, to speak with their lender or mortgage broker about taking out indemnity insurance. If you have already submitted a land search application, Hackney Council will refund the cost of the application.
Speaking to The Hackney Citizen our Sales Director Peter May said;
“Options do exist to proceed with sales in the borough, through looking either at search indemnity, or making a conditional property exchange without the search, though May added that these approaches would necessitate a greater appetite for risk in the exchange, as well as necessitating having to convince both lenders and solicitors to proceed.”
He said: “We are already on a relatively tight timeframe because of the looming stamp duty deadline. The council are not prepared to give a date as to when they will resume returning searches, so at the moment numerous sales, probably in the hundreds, are on pause. There are a couple of options that we can look at, but both are subject to consent by the buyer, the solicitor and the lender.
“Solicitors and lenders are typically cautious, so it is very, very difficult at the moment to give people insight as to when they might be able to move. It is stressing a lot of sales at the moment.
“Frustratingly, the demand is there. Buyers of course want to buy within the Hackney borough, so the volume of sales that we are agreeing has not changed.
“The frustration is we are unable to give any kind of insight on timeframes. I don’t think there will be any impact on prices – it is much more about timing. Unfortunately, if a buyer wants to live in Hackney, regardless of whether they’re buying a property in Stoke Newington or Hackney Wick, they are going to have the same issues.”
Advising and supporting our local buyers & sellers is our priority. We have roped in the support of financial advisors and solicitors who are helping us to help our clients. We will continue to help people move and advise everyone effectively – explaining all options clearly.
We’ve established a short list of lenders who will proceed with the mortgage – without the local search.
If you require advise on how this will affect the sale of your home, give us a call on 0207 923 9222, for further info.
Here’s the link to The Hackney Citizen article: https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2020/11/11/hackneys-property-market-on-pause-cyber-attack/
