Check local land charges

Land or buildings may have legal restrictions or obligations attached to them. These are known as local land charges. They include:

• tree preservation orders
• being part of a conservation area
• listed building status
• conditions imposed on planning permissions
• enforcement notices

Local land charges pass on to new owners of a property when it’s sold.

Walsall Council keeps a register of land charges for land and properties in the borough.

You may need to check what local land charges are in place for a property if you are: 

• buying or remortgaging the property 
• using it as security for a loan 
• leasing it
• renting it out

How to access information on the local land charges register

You can do this by:

• asking a solicitor to apply to the council to carry out an official search and paying a fee
• making a personal search using the Environmental Information Regulations, for free

For information about sewers and drains, you can ask Severn Trent for a drainage and water search.  

Some searches will be recommended by your solicitor. Others will be required by the mortgage lender to protect them from any liabilities that the property may have. 

Make a personal search request

You can request access to the land charges register by emailing us. You’ll need to include:

• the address of the property/unit or land
• a location plan marking the location of the search request (you can buy a location plan from the Planning Portal)

We only accept requests submitted by email.

If you’re making a request for a company, you are restricted to five individual address/unit searches per week.

We will consider requests as being received the next working day. We will provide a copy of the land charges register in relation to the address being searched within 25 working days.

We do not take responsibility for your interpretation of the information we provide.