Every aware person knows that local council officials in Britain are
corrupt to the bone, but here is widespread example that will ring a
bell with practically anyone who has bought or sold a house in the past
year or two.

It concerns how "local searches" are done when someone is investigating
a property they want to buy.

You are supposed to fill in two forms, called an LLC1 and a CON29, and
get responses back from the council. Solicitors give the impression
this is difficult, as you'd expect. In reality, it means telling the
girl in the office "Send off the local searches for 7 Acacia Avenue,
would you?" Or more normally, all of the conveyancing work is done by
the girl (or boy) in the office anyway.

Government "guidelines" say local councils should get responses back
within 10 days. Yes, TEN DAYS. That would be no problem, and only 5-10
years ago, they managed to do this.

But owing to some mega-million-pound computer scam or other, supposedly
(you guessed it!) designed to "improve the service to the customer",
councils are actually taking up to TWO MONTHS.

You'll probably have heard the one where officials drag their feet (or
lose your application) unless you pay them a backhander. That's par for
the course in most of the world.

Well that's exactly what happens here.

Because there IS a way of getting them to send their responses back
sooner.

They call it a "personal search".

But, guess what, they

a) LIMIT the number of personal searches they allow each day
b) require booking ahead
c) "allow" big bookings by so-called "personal search" companies
d) don't give the info in an "assured" form. (Although it's exactly the
same info).

You guessed it again - it's the council officials, in league with
big-bollocked local solicitors, who are behind the "personal search"
companies.

They've worked out the whole system to the last tee, with various
"justifications along the way (e.g. "computers", "first come, first
served", "we're very busy with reorganisation work"), so as to line
their own pockets. How clever these filthy little moneygrabbers must
think they are. Much cleverer than "members of the public", eh?

These "personal search" companies can offer people searches within 4
weeks, or if you pay them a high price, within 2 weeks, or if you pay
them a VERY high price (e.g. £1500), they can get you the searches
within 1 week. They've booked all the slots, see.

When someone phones up who isn't from one of the companies, the Land
Charges section of the local council will tell them that the earliest
available slot is about 1-2 days before they would get a postal search
back anyway. I.e. it isn't worth it. TRY IT AND SEE. (I mean this
literally - if you think the above is a load of crap, please check it
out). The whole system is operated with the "personal search" companies
in mind.

Consider also that the bit of paper given out by the council in
response to a personal search isn't "assured", unlike what they give
out in response to a postal search.

However, it's the same info.

Have you got the point yet?

Solicitors will advise their clients not to proceed on the basis of
unassured info.

But when the companies (not unconnected with solicitors) step in, they
can give the assurance, as easy as anything, and at no risk, because
it's exactly the same info from the council as is given when a search
is done postally - as they well know, because it's council officials
behind the companies.

In any other country, this is called a bribe - a bribe to these ****s,
just so they'll do the job the taxpayer pays them to do. Paid to front
companies. Everyone expects them to "leverage" their public office to
make some money on the side.

Will anyone go to jail? Will they ****!

And remember, the computer scam is an even bigger earner (on a national
scale), and it doesn't take a genius to work out that, Britain being
Britain, the new computer system won't work properly, and there'll be
whole hierarchies of bribes, in connection with that too.

That's the system, folks.

The sad thing is, whilst this type of thing is known to be the system
in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Rumania, Egypt, Israel, South
America, Russia, Asia, etc. etc. etc., in Britain people are so
brow-beaten that they're supposed to think everything is hunky dorey
and above board - mainly because officials either speak in posh
accents, or speak in ****wit-bureaucrat dialect when speaking to
"members of the public", as they call punters, or of course both. And
many people actually do think this.

I'd invite anyone with similar info in this or any other field to post
it here. Let's start, bit by bit, to try to make things better by
bringing some of the **** out into the open, shall we, and letting more
and more people smell it for what it is.

John Nagelson



PS Almost all solicitors in private practice are consummate swindlers,
always adding on "extras" that they think dumb punters won't complain
about, looking for "remortgage" commissions, "introduction" fees, etc.,
and with their tongues hanging out for a chance to "manage
investments" for batty elderly people (i.e. rob them, but at least a
mugger with a baseball bat is honest), but in this particular instance
the big players are the kind of solicitors who hang out with
building-industry and property-speculator gangsters. Naturally, such
solicitors tend to be good mates with the council.