Property Search Service Description

Privacy and Cookie Policy:

The Data Controller for this website is the Coal Authority.

Any information provided to the Coal Authority will be held securely and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. Your personal details will not normally be disclosed to third parties. In some circumstances, however, we may need to disclose your personal details to a third party so that they can provide a service you have requested, or fulfil a request for information. Any information about you that we pass to a third party will be held securely by that party, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, and used only to provide the services or information you have requested.

When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

The Coal Authority's online Property Search Service (www.groundstability.com) does use cookies in order to run the application but these are not permanent cookies and expire after you have left the site. Contact name, address and email information is gathered from you for use in the production of a coal mining report only. This information is not disclosed to third parties and is stored on a secured server. Card payment details are not gathered by the Coal Authority but are dealt with entirely by the WorldPay service.

Service Information:

Our online Search Service enables you to check if coal mining or brine pumping activity affects a property. You can also order and receive ground stability and all-in-one environmental screening reports online.

The system searches for a property using post code and house number or name. Once you have confirmed that the correct address has been entered, searches will be made against the Coal Authority’s database to advise you if a coal mining and brine subsidence claim search is recommended for the property. Where the service is unable to match the address details you have entered against the Post Office Address File (PAF), or if you are searching against a property that does not have a post code and house number or name, you will be able to search using the Full Property Address Entry section of the service.

Ground Stability Searches are relevant throughout Scotland, England & Wales, since natural ground instability can occur in any area of Scotland, England and Wales. Customers may wish to consider the merits of purchasing a ground stability report from the Coal Authority even though the property lies outside of a traditional coal mining and brine subsidence claim area, since, apart from coal and brine subsidence matters, the ground stability report provides additional property specific information on natural ground subsidence hazards.

Enviro All-in-One combines our coal mining and brine subsidence report with a specialist environmental screening report from GroundSure. This covers historical land use, flood risk (in England & Wales), natural ground subsidence hazards and risk from contaminated land.

Where a coal mining and brine subsidence search is recommended you will be able to order the report online. If a coal mining and brine subsidence search is not recommended you will be offered the option to purchase a No Search Required Certificate confirming this information, or a report, online.

The majority of reports are returned within 24 hours, the remainder within 72 hours except in those circumstances where better location particulars have been sought or for larger sites needing manual research of mining records.

Reports and certificates will be dispatched to you via email as a PDF (portable document format) attachment, or if you are a registered user you can chose to download your reports online as either a PDF or archived/ZIP PDF file. This is an Adobe product and requires you to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Types of reports available online:

• Coal Mining & Brine Subsidence, residential property search report
• Coal Mining & Brine Subsidence, non-residential property, commercial or site search report
• Ground Stability, residential property search report
• Ground Stability, non-residential property, commercial or site search report
• Enviro All-in-One, residential property,commercial or site search report
• Enviro All-in-One, non residential property, commercial or site search report

A description of each type of report is contained within the Coal Authority Property Search Service Frequently Asked Questions and is also available on the 'report selection screen' of our Online Property Search Service.

Where the Authority offer and provide a No Search Required Certificate (online service only) further to confirmation that a coal mining and brine subsidence search is not required for a particular property, this does not and should not be deemed to confirm that no coal mining strata is present, nor that some part of any coal resources present will (subject to obtaining planning permission and any necessary licences) not be worked at some future date, nor that minerals other than coal have not been worked in the vicinity of the property, nor that the property is not at risk from flooding or affected by contaminated land or affected by any natural ground subsidence hazards, including, but not restricted to, shrinkable clay, running sand, compressible materials, collapsible materials, landslide activity or soluble rocks including limestone, chalk, gypsum or salt.

Report Types and Prices (effective from 04.01.11)

Payment for the reports is made via the RBS WorldPay secure payment system or by monthly invoice. Monthly invoiced accounts are subject to application, acceptance and a formal credit agreement with the Authority.

 Where the RBS WorldPay secure payment system is used, the Search Service will automatically link you to the RBS WorldPay system when payment is required. No credit or debit card details are seen or stored by the Coal Authority, and all payment transactions take place directly within the RBS WorldPay system. For more information on the RBS WorldPay system please visit the RBS WorldPay website.

In order to use the online service you will require the following:

• post code and house number or name of the property you are interested in for established property, or a development site description where this is not available.
• an email address
• your contact details including name, postal and email address and telephone number
• a credit or debit card (unless monthly invoiced account used)

Regular users can register online with their own user id and password to access the system. Where a user id and password is used, contact details are pre-recorded in the system and do not need to be re-entered each time you access the system. Credit or debit card information is not requested by the Coal Authority and is not stored within the system. For details on how to become a Registered User, please see our Frequently Asked Questions

Once WorldPay confirms payment, or you receive confirmation that your request has been added to your monthly invoice, an EME number will be given and the Coal Authority will automatically produce the report or certificate. You will therefore not be able to cancel your order once you have received confirmation that the report or certificate has been ordered.

Before using the Property Search Service, customers must read and accept theTerms and Conditions of use, under which all searches are provided.