Talking Property: Virtually every conveyancing solicitor has experienced the client who has forgotten to disclose an unpaid debt, writes Pat Igoe

The Taoiseach is not the only person whose privacy has been invaded recently. Every working day, searches are made quietly on hundreds of ordinary citizens around the country. Secrets of the past are thrown-up - and it is lawful and fair.

Whether people realise it or not, every time a house or apartment is sold, careful investigations - both into the vendors and their properties for sale - are conducted by law searchers on behalf of purchasers. Permission is not required. And, where the buyers are taking-out a mortgage, detailed searches are conducted against them too. So, there are already significant and legitimate inroads into what we may think are our private and confidential affairs. Law searchers are hired by solicitors to bring to light any relevant issues about individuals and their properties. Interesting facts, such as unpaid debts and undisclosed disputes with neighbours, can and do come to light - embarrassingly.

Immediately before a sale is due to be completed, the searchers are instructed to trawl through up-to-date records in the Four Courts for court judgments, and also in the Land Registry, in the Registry of Deeds in Henrietta Street, Dublin, and in the planning offices of local authorities.

Other offices visited as necessary include the Probate Office, the Sheriff's Office and the Revenue Sheriff's Office. And this list is not exhaustive. There is more kept on us in public records than most of us realise. So, if a person has unpaid debts, court judgments, taken out more than one mortgage, even been declared bankrupt, and forgotten to tell any of it to the acting solicitor, they most probably will be uncovered in searches - and in the most unfortunate of circumstances around a desk as a sale of a house or apartment is about to complete. Or, probably more accurately, was about to complete.

There are more than 150 people employed full-time in the law searching industry. They are employed by at least 13 firms, mostly based in Dublin. Their services are used daily by solicitors. Just one medium-sized Dublin firm searches against an average of 15,000 people and properties per year. Industry-wide, it is believed that the number of total searches is close to 200,000.

So, what exactly do law searchers do and what do they try to find out about us? "As an occupation, we are not well known but we provide an essential service to people by investigating and checking carefully the records to ensure that people own what they say they own and also that debts and mortgages on properties are properly declared before a buyer takes a property," says Deirdre Swaine, a director with DLS Law Searchers in Dublin.

The basic reason for searches is that, under the Conveyancing Act of 1882, a purchaser must make reasonable enquiries about a property and its declared owner in order to have the protection of the law where a vendor has not disclosed all relevant facts either about themselves or about the property. It is "buyer beware" at its finest. As former US president Ronald Reagan insisted to his then Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev: "Trust, but verify."

Virtually every conveyancing solicitor has experienced the client who has forgotten to disclose an unpaid debt, but which is then disclosed by the searches at the completion of the sale or the new mortgage to all present. A Judgments Office search in the Central Office of the High Court shows up registered court judgments.

Searches may also show up what are called any lis pendens, which is a record of court proceedings involving a property. A registered lis pendens may bring a proposed sale of a house or apartment to an abrupt end until it is resolved. Debts against a vendor which may appear on a sheriff's search can affect leasehold property only but, even then, it can be difficult for a sheriff to take possession of property and to sell it. Sheriffs may usually succeed in taking possession of debtors' possessions, such as cars in front of the driveway, but not the driveway itself. But the disclosures almost always make purchasers and their solicitors nervous about proceeding to buy.

A court judgment against a vendor may have been registered as a mortgage against the house or apartment that is now being sold. But no purchaser wants somebody else's mortgage, no matter to whom or how it arose. So, the sale will probably be immediately stopped until the debt and the interest and the legal costs are all paid. This is the moment of supreme vindication for the unpaid creditor. The right to privacy is one of the unspecified personal rights under Article 40.3 of the Constitution. But it does not extend to disclosure of relevant and registered information about vendors and their properties - even if the disclosures bring some sales to an abrupt halt. Whether the constitutional right also covers a private loan or gift is another matter.

Pat Igoe is a solicitor in Blackrock