Filling in Seller’s Property Information Forms

What is a property information form?

When you are selling your house, you can expect to have to sign and complete various legal documents and other papers. One of those is the Property Information Form, commonly referred to simply as the TA6. This is a comprehensive document that you are obligated to complete that will provide many details about the property that you’re selling.

The forms are designed to give the buyer additional details on your home that they might not be able to obtain through regular public records searches, including information on any fights that you’re having with your neighbours and a host of other issues.

The Law Society, which is the professional association representing and overseeing solicitors in England and Wales, has a sample TA6 form on its website that will give you an idea of the questions that you’ll be asked, along with some helpful explanatory notes to help you better understand the legal reasoning behind some of the questions.

What details am I required to disclose on a property information form?

Most people will receive a TA6 from their solicitor who’s handling the sale of the home, with instructions for how to fill out the questionnaire about their property.

The questions are for the most part fairly straightforward but some of the answers that you give might have to be very detailed. You should be honest and upfront with everything that you put on the TA6 because false or missing information can cause problems in the sale process.

Among the many questions you’ll be asked on your TA6 is one that might seem relatively trivial but is actually incredibly important. The form will ask whether there is any Japanese knotweed on your land that is affecting the building in any way. You must answer truthfully, because this weed is an invasive species that damage concrete and tarmac. Left untreated it can become a major problem for your home that requires a lot of time and money to fix. In addition to disclosing whether the weed is present on your property, you’ll also have to specify on the TA6 whether you have a management plan in place if you have Japanese knotweed present.

Another key question that will be asked of you on the TA6 is whether you are aware of any planned property development in the area. This can be significant because a buyer might not want to move into your home if there will soon be large construction in the area.

Other questions on the TA6 that you must answer include information on your property boundaries, including whether you are aware of any disputes that have happened about access to your property, and whether those matters are resolved or continuing.

If your property is leasehold, you will also be required to complete a TA7 form. These are specific enquiries relating to leasehold properties including ground rent information, management company details, shared responsibilities and if you are selling a short lease property you will also need to provide details of any leasehold extension matters and eligibility.

How to proceed if you identify problems with your home on the TA6?

When you’re collecting all of the information your property in order to complete the TA6 form, you could discover that the house or flat has some type of significant problem that might discourage certain buyers.

This can be physical damage, such as dry rot, subsidence, damp, a leaking roof or anything else, or it might be a legal complication such as a dispute over access rights to the property, or potentially financial factors like overdue ground rent, or many other scenarios.

If this applies to your situation then you will need to think about whether you want to invest the necessary time, money and effort to resolve the problem before selling.

Selling a home “as is” with a prominent negative factor can cause some buyers to lose interest completely, or they might decide they still want to purchase your property but at a much-reduced price, which in turn would lower the profit that you might be able to make from the sale.

But fixing the problem might also require far more money, time and effort that you are willing to spend before seeking a buyer. Should you be in this scenario then you do not need to panic that you won’t be able to sell your home, because you still have several options available.

For instance, you could get in touch with a quick home buying company like LDN Properties. These businesses make fast and fair offers to purchase almost any type of freehold or leasehold house, flat or other type of property, including those considered to be problem homes. They will never charge you commission and they can complete the purchase in just a few weeks. You can find out more about this and other selling options in the guide’s next section.

What are your options to seek a buyer for your property?

Another crucial part of the property selling process is making a decision on which method you would like to use to find a buyer. Generally, you can select from selling at an auction, selling to a quick buyer, selling through an estate agent or selling without any assistance.

All four of your options vary based on how long they take, how much they cost, and other important elements. For example, you will have to pay commission to an estate agent or an auctioneer if they manage to sell your home, whereas an honest quick buyer like LDN Properties won’t charge you any fees.

It can be helpful to write down your main goals with selling your home, such as your preferred selling price, whether or not you can accept paying any fees, and how speedily you want to sell. Then compare these issues against the details of the four options below, and this should assist in identifying which of the selling choices is the closest match to your situation.

Selling at an auction

Auctions are an uncertain way to sell your home because you might not get any bids on your property, which means that it does not sell. You would then need to start again with trying to find a buyer for the house or flat, adding much more time to your selling calendar.

The goal is to have many people interested in your home so that it receives many bids, which will be of increasing value, resulting in a profitably high final sale price at the auction. But you could get just a single bid at the reserve price – this is the lowest price at which you are comfortable selling your home, and you’ll agree to with the auctioneer in advance.

You must take care to choose a reserve price that is expected to generate some profit from the sale, even after deducting the auctioneer’s fees. Otherwise there’s the danger that you only break even by selling close to what you paid for the home, or even selling at a loss.

To assist with calculating your reserve price, bear in mind that many auctioneers set their commission at 2.5 percent of a property’s final sale price. This fee is subtracted immediately from the auction proceeds and will therefore increase your selling costs.

Auctioneers charge this fee to cover the work that they put in to selling a home, which starts with creating a listing that describes the property’s main features and includes photographs of the interior and exterior. They will advertise this listing to get buyers interested and then host the auction, along with overseeing the final stages of a successful auction.

It’s also important to know that selling via an auction can take a long time, including many weeks or months of waiting from the day that you choose this strategy and that the day that the auction is held. If your home sells, the winning bidder then has about 28 days to sign all the legal papers and finish the other steps needed to complete the sale.

Selling to a quick buyer

Another way to sell is to a quick buyer like LDN Properties. These companies have the financial resources available to buy your home right away without first needed to get approval for a mortgage to cover the cost of the transaction. This cuts the selling timeline to a few short weeks, and this includes exchanging contracts and paying the seller the full proceeds.

When you sell to an honest zero-commission quick buyer you can also avoid having to pay any fees on the sale, which contrasts with selling through an estate agent or an auctioneer, where you would need to pay a fee that would be deducted immediately from the sale proceeds.

Selling this way is streamlined, hassle-free and zero stress, and it begins when you call the quick buyer. Within one hour of talking you should receive an initial offer on your home, and there’s no pressure to accept it right away, as you’ll have at least a week to consider it.

The next step is for one of the quick buyer’s representatives to come to your property in order to inspects the exterior and interior, which will help the company make a final offer. This is the only such viewing that you will need to have as part of this process, compared to potentially dozens or more viewings from strangers if you decide to sell through another method.

And the final step happens if you accept the quick buyer’s final offer, in which case they will move swiftly to work with your solicitor or other legal representative on completing the necessary legal documents and other tasks needed to finalise the sale.

If you have any doubts about selling to a quick buyer, you can ask specific companies if they can prove that they are members of The Property Ombudsman (TPO). This is an independent organisation that writes regulations to guard homeowners against scams in the quick buying industry, and all legitimate TPO members – like LDN Properties – must follow these rules, which should give you extra peace of mind when selling to them.

It’s free, fast and easy to check on the membership status of a quick buyer by visiting TPO’s website, clicking on the “Find a Member” tab on the welcome page, and then when prompted tying in the name of a company. If they are truly registered with TPO you will then be shown their membership details but if they’re not a member then you’ll get no results. Never sell your home to a non-TPO member quick buyer as it could be a scam business.

Selling through an estate agent

Selling your house or flat using the services of an estate agent might be a good choice for those owners that don’t want to put in much effort. The estate agent will be responsible for all of the crucial tasks, beginning with producing and advertising a listing, scheduling viewings, hearing offers and aiming to guide a serious offer to the last step of exchanging contracts.

The timeline for selling a home this way can be unpredictable and might take many months or in some cases more than an entire year. And even if you get an offer, the buyer might later cancel it and prompt the sale to fall apart – and if contracts are not yet exchanged they can do this without facing any penalties. You’d then have to start over with the search for another buyer, possibly adding much more time to your overall selling schedule.

If an estate agent manages to sell your home then you would also have to pay them commission for the work that they did in finding a buyer. Often this fee is charged anywhere from 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of your property’s final sale price, although the precise fee could be charged at a rate that is below or above this range.

One estate agent trick to watch out for is when they quote you an impressively high potential sale price for your home, even if they secretly understand it will only attract offers at a much lower rate. They do this to persuade you to sell your property using their services, so that they can benefit from the commission they will charge if they find a buyer for the home.

Thankfully, you can avoid falling for this trick with some free and quick steps. First, ask multiple estate agents to give you non-binding, no-cost sale price quotes for your house or flat. Second, look up the current and past sale prices of properties like yours on home sale websites like Rightmove and Zoopla. Finally, calculate the average of all these values and this should provide a better rough estimate of your property’s potential sale price.

Selling without any assistance

Some owners attempt to sell their home without any help, which puts the burden on them to handle all of the tasks needed to find a buyer. You will have to develop a listing, advertise it, schedule viewings, hear offers and aim to get one to the exchange of contracts.

This will require a lot of time and effort on your part, and it can quickly become quite a stressful experience. That’s why you should only really consider pursuing this approach if you have previously managed to sell a house or flat, or if you know a suitably qualified family member or friend that might be willing to assist you with the selling process at no charge.

Even if you have such experience you might still find that it takes many months or more than a full year to sell this way. Note also that someone can make a legitimate offer but later rescind it, which they can do without penalty if you have not yet exchanged contracts. You would then need to begin again with seeking a buyer, delaying your selling timeline much further.

Perhaps the only obvious benefit of selling on your own is that you avoid having to pay expensive commission to an auctioneer or an estate agent. But this saving might easily be eliminated by the funds that you have to spend on various other parts of the selling process.

Instead of selling on your own, think about selling to a no-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties. You would get the same benefit not having to pay any commission on the sale but you’d also experience the additional advantage of selling on a much more rapid timeline because it will only take a few weeks, and that includes the time needed for exchanging contracts.