Bracknell Forest Council and its land searches software supplier, Arcus Global, have apologised for disruption to local property purchases caused by a significant data issue.
The borough's land charges search system was switched to Arcus' software at the end of January. The transition was expected to pause searches for around five working days, with the service resuming at the start of February.
However, unexpected data issues meant the service could not return accurate and full results, as the data from the old system was not in a format that could be easily synced with the new one.
Cabinet member Cllr Iskandar Jefferies said the council could not risk providing house buyers with inaccurate or faulty information, and confirmed that extra staff would be drafted in to clear the backlog once the system is restored.
The council and Arcus have been holding twice-daily progress meetings, with the matter tracked by senior staff at both organisations. The council said work on the data is now largely complete, with testing carried out at each stage to ensure accuracy.
