Everything you need to know about the CON29DW
An essential part of the conveyancing process, the CON29DW products provide key information regarding water and sewerage services or assets for prospective property owners, protecting buyers and their advisers from unnecessary risk, complementing their own due diligence.
What makes CON29DW products essential?
Both the CON29DW Residential and the CON29DW Commercial reports are created from complex data. They are comprehensive and analysed by specialists during preparation.
Each report goes through various quality and review stages before being delivered to the conveyancer, giving confidence to property purchasers and their advisers.
What makes the CON29DW products essential?
This illustration sets out in a diagram how both the CON29DW Residential and CON29DW Commercial are created. They draw on complex comprehensive data that is analysed by specialists during preparation.
Each report goes through various quality and review stages before being delivered to the conveyancer, giving confidence to property purchasers and their advisers.
Here are the stages of process:
- A customer’s enquiry is received
- First of all the property address is checked that it is on the records
- Once that is confirmed the process to gather all the information needed for a Drainage and Water Search starts. This requires drawing on multiple data sources.
- For the residential searches this requires data on the following areas: Billing, Connection, Water assets, Sewerage assets, Water pressure, Sewer flooding history, Water hardness, Build over agreements, Asset adoption information
- For the commercial searches this requires data on the following areas: Connection, Water assets, Sewerage assets, Trade effluent, Water pressure, Sewer flooding history, Wayleaves/Easements, Water hardness, Build over agreements, Asset adoption information
- Once the data has been collected and analysed this may raise queries and these need to be checked.
- The report is then prepared.
- Final quality checks are made.
- The final report is then released to the conveyancer.
Benefits of the CON29DW
- Property purchasers and their advisers need qualified drainage and water information to make informed purchasing or leasing decisions. A CON29DW complements your due diligence and helps to mitigate risk with specified indemnity levels.
- The report comprises standardised questions developed with the Law Society and both the residential and commercial products are regularly updated to reflect legislative and industry changes.
- Knowledgeable teams interpret and verify comprehensive and current drainage and water data.
- Terms & Conditions with appropriate guarantees are there to support you and your client.
- DWSN independently audits and validates its members on a regular basis to ensure compliance with quality and excellent service standards. External auditors review members’ products to ensure compliance with all DWSN’s Standards.
Clearly essential
Since the CON29DW Residential’s introduction in 2002 and the launch of the CommercialDW in 2010, both have been developed and updated to reflect an ever-changing water industry and legislative framework.
These improvements aim to ensure users can receive the outcomes of the search even more quickly and should result in a quality user experience thanks to increased clarity, efficiency and usability for clients.
The CON29DW and DWSN timeline
This image provides a diagram illustrating a timeline of the key milestones in the development of the residential and commercial variants of the CON29DW and the Drainage and Water Searches Network. Since the CON29DW Residential’s introduction in 2002 and the launch of the CommercialDW in 2010, both have been developed and updated to reflect an ever-changing water industry and legislative framework.
- Before-2002: The local authority search included two drainage and water related questions for residential properties.
- 2002: The CON29DW Drainage and Water Enquiry was developed for residential properties by the Law Society in consultation with government departments and the water industry. This new enquiry included: the location of sewer and water mains, the connection status of a property, and billing information.
- 2003: Home Information Packs (HIPs) were announced in the Queen’s Speech
- 2004: No specific activity or milestones in this year
- 2005: No specific activity or milestones in this year
- 2006: In June draft HIPs’ regulations set out detailed contents of HIPs
- 2007: The CON29DW Working Group was set up. It was made up of representatives from CCWater, Government departments including Defra, plus the Law Society and the water and sewerage companies of England and Wales. The Group agreed additional information and recommended that the residential CON29DW became a mandatory part of Home Information Packs (HIPs) for residential properties. In August 2007, Home Information Packs (HIPs) were made mandatory and introduced in a phased approach based around property size, but were required for all properties from December 2007.
- 2008: No specific activity or milestones in this year
- 2009: No specific activity or milestones in this year
- 2010: Home Information Packs were no longer compulsory but a requirement for energy certificates for properties was retained. The Commercial Drainage & Water Enquiry (CommercialDW) was launched.
- 2011: Updates were made to both the residential and commercial enquiries, advising how property owners’ liabilities changed as a result of Private Sewer Transfer Regulations.
- 2012: The residential CON29DW celebrated its 10th anniversary.
- 2013: Updates were made to the residential CON29DW so that it was re-ordered for a more logical structure with additional amendments required by changes to sewer adoption procedures and the second phase of private sewer transfers.
- 2014: The Drainage and Water Searches Network (DWSN) was established to provide an industry body for all producers of the Law Society’s residential CON29DW.
- 2015: No specific activity or milestones in this year
- 2016: In July 2016 there was an update on private sewer adoption and in October there were updates on private pumping station adoption.
- 2017: Following Water Market Reform in England, all non-household customers were able to choose their supplier of water and sewerage retail services, this required changes to the billing questions within the CommercialDW. In 2017, the residential CON29DW celebrated its 15th anniversary.
- 2018: No specific activity or milestones in this year
- 2019: No specific activity or milestones in this year
- 2020: No specific activity or milestones in this year
- 2021: Working with The Law Society, the searches were rebranded to the CON29DW Residential and the CON29DW Commercial respectively. The CON29DW Commercial’s questions were updated, ensuring a standardised product.
- 2022: The CON29DW celebrated its 20th Anniversary.