Search box causing 404

Hello,
I need to have a search box in my client’s header and due to the theme they are using, I can’t use the PHP code to insert it. Instead, I did a search and found the html code I can use to put it in.

<form role="search" method="get" id="searchform" action="<?php echo home_url( '/' ); ?>">
    <div align="right" style="margin-top:10px;">
    <input type="text" value="" placeholder="To search, type and hit enter." name="s" id="s" size="25" />
    </div>
</form>

Unfortunately, that causes the site to go to a 404 when using it. I have figured out the reason for this is because the url that is returned has an out of place < in it.

http://mccartyfamilyfarms.com/%3C?s=search

It is represented in the url above as %3c. In any case, if you delete it, the search works exactly as it should.

Can someone help me figure out why that is showing up?

Thanks much
Dylan Fleming
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