A backlog at South Kesteven District Council meant it took the council over a month to undertake property searches.

The district council says it has put extra resource into the service, allowing such searches to be done in just four days, compared with a target of ten days.

A report prepared for a council meeting next week to carry out such searches, needed by solicitors and others undertaking the sale of properties, said the average time for this was 22 days at the end of April.

But in May this had risen again to 27 days and at its highest reached 32 days due to staff holidays and sickness.

The report continued: "On 1 May 2021, the Land Charges function transferred from Planning to Legal and Democratic Services.

"Since that time it has emerged that:

a. the service had been under-resourced.

b. The significant influx of demand was not matched by an increase in resource. This has resulted in the backlog.

c. Due to the backlog, much time has been spent answering emails and phone calls from solicitors whose clients are under time pressures to exchange contracts, and this has taken resources away from processing searches.

d. The planning system (Uniform) and the land charges system (Total Land Charges 'TLC') do not fully integrate. Updates to Uniform cause delays within TLC and this has a knock-on effect to the search turnaround times."

The report also noted a lack of an up-to-date GIS mapping process, so staff have to duplicate data manually to ensure accuracy.

"This and many other such anomalies add delay into the process."

The report notes extra staff resource has been moved into this area, including the approval of overtime.

A neighbouring council which has also improved its searching services is also helping SKDC in a review.

This is providing recommendations for SKDC to follow, some of which have already been implemented, the report also added.