Somewhere in most sellers’ minds sits an awkward little list. The leak in the utility room that was fixed two years ago but left a faint mark. The argument with next door about the fence line that never went anywhere formal. The extension built without building regulations sign-off, back when the previous owner did it. None of it feels like lying, exactly. It feels more like: nobody’s actually asked.
That instinct — answer as little as possible and hope anything awkward emerges later — is a dangerous way to approach a sale. But the opposite version, that a private homeowner now has a blanket legal duty to volunteer every fact that might possibly matter to a buyer, is not quite right either.
What a seller has to say, when they have to say it and who is legally responsible depends on which part of the sale you are talking about. The estate agent’s obligations when marketing the property are not the same as the seller’s obligations when answering conveyancing enquiries, and neither should be confused with the government’s plans for mandatory upfront sales packs that have not yet become law.
Getting any of those stages wrong can still be expensive. It can cause a buyer to renegotiate or walk away before exchange, delay conveyancing, or leave a seller facing a misrepresentation claim after completion.
The legal foundation: your agent’s listing duties are not the same as yours
Since 6 April 2025, the main UK consumer-protection rules governing commercial practices have sat under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The Act replaced and updated the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
Under the CMA’s guidance on unfair commercial practices, traders can act unlawfully not only by making misleading statements but by omitting material information that an average consumer needs to make an informed decision. Information can also effectively be omitted if it is supplied too late, unclearly or in a way the consumer is unlikely to see.
For a normal homeowner selling their own home, however, there is an important distinction. These consumer-protection provisions regulate the activities of traders. In an ordinary residential sale, that will usually place the direct marketing obligation on the estate agent or other property professional acting commercially, rather than turning the private seller themselves into a trader simply because they are selling their home.
That does not give the seller licence to keep their agent in the dark. An agent trying to determine what information a prospective buyer needs can only work with what is available to them. Sellers should answer their agent’s questions accurately and raise known issues that could obviously affect the way the property is marketed rather than knowingly allowing a misleading impression to remain.
The position is also less prescriptive than some older seller guidance suggests. National Trading Standards previously developed a three-part material-information framework commonly described as Parts A, B and C. But the government’s own 2025–26 consultation acknowledged that those earlier attempts had not produced sector-specific guidance under the new DMCC Act. As at September 2026, there is no statutory property-specific checklist in the Act telling every estate agent that the same fixed list must appear in every residential listing.
The government has instead committed to publish new non-statutory guidance explaining how estate agents should apply their existing legal responsibilities to property listings. Its material information consultation and response make clear that what counts as material can vary from property to property.
That changes the question from “is this on the old Part A, B or C list?” to the more useful one: is this information a prospective buyer is likely to need in order to make an informed decision about whether to view, offer or proceed?
Where the paperwork actually stands in 2026
Once an offer is accepted, a different disclosure process begins.
In England and Wales, the Law Society’s TA6 Property Information Form is used in most standard residential transactions. The current TA6 sixth edition replaced the fourth and fifth editions for new transactions handled by Conveyancing Quality Scheme firms where the solicitor was instructed on or after 30 March 2026.
That date matters because the current form moved in the opposite direction from some commentary about ever-expanding material-information forms. Questions added to the fifth edition to reflect the earlier National Trading Standards framework were removed from the sixth edition, which was deliberately streamlined and brought closer in structure to the older TA6.
The TA6 is nevertheless an important document. Its current sections include boundaries, disputes, notices, alterations, guarantees and warranties, insurance, environmental matters, rights and informal arrangements, parking and services.
The seller is expected to answer from their own knowledge. The Law Society’s explanatory notes for sellers tell sellers to answer truthfully, completely and as accurately as they can, to have a reasonable basis for what they say, and to say when they do not know rather than guess. Sellers are not expected to have the technical knowledge of a surveyor or the legal knowledge of a conveyancer, and they cannot disclose things they genuinely do not know. But a positive answer matters because a buyer may rely on it, and misleading information can leave a seller exposed to a claim after completion.
If circumstances change after the form has been completed, that matters too. A new dispute with the neighbour, a fresh notice from the council or some other development that makes an earlier answer inaccurate should be raised with the seller’s conveyancer rather than left because “the form has already gone back”. For leasehold transactions, further information is normally supplied through the separate TA7 Leasehold Information Form alongside the TA6.
Current law versus the reform that hasn’t landed yet
There is another layer of disclosure coming, but it is important not to write about it as though it already exists.
The government consulted in late 2025 on wider home-buying and selling reform and on material information in property listings. In June 2026 it published its Home Buying and Selling Reform Roadmap.
The long-term plan is significant. The government wants a standardised sales pack prepared before a property is marketed, eventually containing information such as title documents, tenure and charges, searches, a property questionnaire and a property condition assessment. Digital property logbooks and sales packs are intended to become a normal part of the transaction.
But sellers are not currently subject to a general statutory requirement to prepare that future sales pack before listing their home. The roadmap says legislation will be introduced when parliamentary time allows. During 2026, the immediate programme is to identify information that can be supplied voluntarily upfront, publish guidance and prepare the industry for what is intended to follow.
There is therefore a useful distinction between being sale-ready and being legally required to have a sales pack. Gathering planning documents, warranties, title information, guarantees and other paperwork before a buyer is found can make considerable practical sense and may remove weeks of chasing later. It is not the same thing as saying Parliament has already imposed the future sales-pack regime.
Scotland already starts from somewhere different
Scotland needs to be treated separately because its sales process already requires significantly more information before marketing.
For most Scottish residential sales, the seller must arrange a Home Report before the property is put on the market, subject to specified exceptions. The report contains a single survey and valuation, an energy report and a property questionnaire completed by the seller.
The Scottish Government’s guidance for people selling a home explains that the Home Report is one of the first things a seller should arrange and that it remains necessary even where the owner is selling privately, unless an exemption applies.
This is not simply Scotland’s version of the TA6. It is a different transaction system, placing survey and property information in front of prospective buyers much earlier. The UK government’s 2026 reform roadmap acknowledges that difference, with most of its proposed home-buying reforms expected to concern England, Wales and Northern Ireland rather than simply being transplanted into Scotland’s existing system.
So what should you actually tell a buyer?
For an England and Wales seller, the safest way to think about this is not to invent your own universal list of defects that must be confessed before the photographer arrives. The obligations and practical responsibilities change as the sale progresses.
| Stage of the sale | Who needs the information? | Seller’s practical job |
|---|---|---|
| Before and during marketing | Estate agent | Answer questions accurately and flag known matters that could leave the property being marketed on a misleading basis |
| After an offer is accepted | Your conveyancer and, through the conveyancing process, the buyer | Complete the TA6 and enquiries from your actual knowledge, provide relevant documents and say when something is genuinely not known |
| If something changes during the sale | Your conveyancer, and your agent where relevant | Update them rather than allowing an earlier answer or marketing statement to remain inaccurate |
At the marketing stage, the estate agent has their own consumer-law responsibility to decide what information prospective buyers need. The seller’s practical role is to give them accurate information and not knowingly allow the property to be marketed on a false or misleading basis.
Once conveyancing begins, answer the TA6 and any additional enquiries honestly, completely and from your actual knowledge. Supply relevant paperwork where you have it, say when you do not know something, and involve your conveyancer when you are unsure how a question applies.
If the buyer or their conveyancer asks a direct factual question, the same principle matters even more. Do not guess, minimise the issue or give a confident “no” unless you have a reasonable basis for doing so. If you genuinely do not know, say so and discuss the response with your conveyancer. A definite answer may be something the buyer relies on when deciding whether to proceed.
The sorts of matters sellers can expect to be asked about include:
- past or present disputes or issues with neighbours
- alterations, extensions and the planning or building-control paperwork connected with them
- notices affecting the property or nearby development
- previous flooding and relevant environmental matters
- Japanese knotweed and any survey or management plan you know about
- rights, informal arrangements and access affecting the property
- guarantees, warranties and relevant insurance matters
- parking and service arrangements.
Leasehold sellers will normally face additional questions covering the lease, management arrangements, service charges and related information.
This is not the same as saying every repaired defect, historic maintenance job or cosmetic flaw must be volunteered as a freestanding legal disclosure. The seller’s responsibility depends on the question being asked, what the seller actually knows, what representations have already been made and, at the marketing stage, what information the agent needs in order to meet their own duties.
Those three awkward examples are not legally identical
Take the three things from the beginning of this article. The faint mark from a utility-room leak that was repaired two years ago is not automatically the same as an unresolved defect that has been painted over before a viewing. There is no general rule saying a seller must narrate every leak or repair that has ever occurred in the house. But if the circumstances fall within something the property form asks about — flooding, insurance, guarantees or another relevant matter — or the buyer asks a direct question, the seller should answer accurately rather than minimise or disguise what happened.
The argument with the neighbour about the fence is much clearer. The current TA6 specifically asks about past and present disputes, and its explanatory notes make clear that buyers will also want to know about relevant issues or concerns even where nothing formal has yet been done. Calling it “just a disagreement” does not necessarily make it disappear for disclosure purposes.
The extension without building regulations sign-off is different again. TA6 asks about alterations and the relevant permissions and approvals. If the extension was built by a previous owner, you are not expected to invent knowledge you do not have, but you should disclose what you do know, provide whatever paperwork exists and say when documentation or approval is not known or cannot be produced.
That is why “nobody asked” is such an unreliable strategy. In a modern transaction, eventually somebody usually does.
Presentation is not the same thing as concealment
There is nothing improper about presenting a house well. Sellers repaint tired rooms, cut the grass, replace broken handles and clear clutter because buyers understandably respond better to a property that has been cared for. Nobody expects an estate-agent listing to catalogue every scratch in a worktop or every tile that will eventually need replacing.
The problem begins when presentation creates a false impression about something significant, or when an answer to the agent, buyer or conveyancer is inaccurate or incomplete in a way that matters.
There is also a commercial reason to deal with awkward information early. A missing building-regulations certificate disclosed while the sale is being prepared can be investigated. The same problem discovered after the buyer has spent money on a survey and mortgage application can become a renegotiation, a delay or the moment the buyer decides they no longer trust the transaction. Likewise, an old neighbour disagreement explained properly is usually easier to assess than one discovered unexpectedly in correspondence several weeks into conveyancing.
Early disclosure does not guarantee that a buyer will accept the issue. Sometimes they will not. But concealing something that is eventually going to emerge rarely improves the seller’s negotiating position.
If there is any real doubt about whether an issue needs to be revealed, how a TA6 question should be answered or whether something said during marketing could be misleading, the sensible place to raise it is with the seller’s conveyancer before an inaccurate answer or representation goes any further.
This article provides general information about residential property sales and does not constitute legal advice. Consumer-protection, conveyancing and disclosure requirements differ across the UK and depend on the circumstances of the transaction. If you are uncertain about what information should be provided to an estate agent, buyer or conveyancer, seek advice from the relevant property professional before making or signing a statement.
