PROSPECTIVE house buyers are facing big rises in the cost of local authority searches, according to a survey.

The searches, which provide information such as whether there are any roads being built nearby and even if land on which the house is built is contaminated, are carried out for a fee by local councils and demanded by mortgage lenders before contracts are exchanged.

But, despite the procedure being exactly the same, the cost can range between £96 to £168 depending on which part of the North-East you buy your home.

Several councils have also increased prices by more than ten per cent in the past two years, law firm Gordon Brown Associates said.

Its survey comes in the wake of an investigation by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which called on the Government to give clearer guidance on the charges local authorities should be able to impose.

Gordon Brown Associates, which has offices in Chester-le-Street, Sunderland, Low Fell and Stanley, said it quizzed 22 local councils and found every one had increased their search fee between 2003 and this year.

It said the highest rise was one of 14 per cent at Hartlepool Borough Council, which now charges £132.60.

A spokesman at the authority said the cost had risen in line with inflation, although he said the actual rise was less than published in the survey.

The cheapest survey was £96 at Middlesbrough Council and the most expensive was £168 at Castle Morpeth Borough Council, in Northumberland, the survey said.

Gordon Brown, senior partner at Gordon Brown Associates, said: "Each local authority does essentially the same thing when conducting these searches, so the Government needs to lay down some guidelines to councils regarding what they should be charging.

"In essence, what we have is a postcode lottery when it comes to search fees."

"It is about time these differences were justified to house buyers.

"The cost of a local search as a percentage of the legal fees involved in buying a house continues to grow in what appears to be a random manner."