When you sell a home in England or Wales, the law expects you to be truthful about it. You do not have to commission your own survey, and you are not obliged to volunteer every flaw, but you must not hide problems you know about, and you must answer the standard questions honestly. Most of this happens through one document, the TA6 Property Information Form, which your conveyancer sends you early in the sale. Answer it carefully and the deal tends to run smoothly. Get an answer wrong, even by accident, and a claim can land long after you have moved out.
1 What the seller's duty of disclosure actually means
The legal starting point for a seller is "caveat emptor", or buyer beware. The buyer is responsible for investigating the property through searches, surveys and enquiries, and you are not expected to point out every imperfection. That rule has firm limits, though. You must not make a statement that is false or misleading, and you must not deliberately conceal a defect. Once you answer a question on the TA6, that answer becomes something the buyer relies on, and you can be held to it.
The practical version is short. If you are asked something, answer it truthfully and in full. If you are unsure, say so rather than guess. Your conveyancer handles the legal mechanics, and you can read more about their role in conveyancing when you are selling, but the answers on the forms are yours, and you sign to confirm they are true.
2 The TA6 form and what it asks you to declare
The TA6 Property Information Form is the main disclosure document in a standard residential sale. It is published by the Law Society, and it asks you to set out what you know about the property across a wide range of topics. You fill it in at home, in your own time, and your conveyancer passes it to the buyer's side along with the contract pack. (Scotland uses a different system altogether, and Northern Ireland has its own forms, so this guide applies to England and Wales.)
The form covers a lot of ground. The areas that cause the most trouble, and that matter most to a buyer, tend to be these:
- Disputes and complaints: any past or ongoing disagreement with a neighbour, including boundary rows, noise, parking, access or shared drains, and any complaints made to you or by you.
- Boundaries: who owns and maintains the fences, walls and hedges, and whether any boundary has been moved.
- Alterations and building works: extensions, loft or garage conversions, removal of internal walls, new windows, a new boiler or rewiring, and whether the work had the right approvals.
- Planning and building regulations: whether you hold completion certificates, FENSA or other certificates, and any planning conditions attached to the property.
- Notices and proposals: letters from the council or neighbours about nearby development, planning applications or enforcement.
- Flooding: whether the property has ever flooded, from any source, and how recently.
- Japanese knotweed: whether this invasive plant is, or has been, present, and whether there is a treatment plan in place.
- Services, rights and arrangements: shared access, private drainage, rights of way, and any informal agreements with neighbours.
- Guarantees and insurance: damp, timber, subsidence or other claims, and any guarantees that pass with the property.
Japanese knotweed has its own TA6 question and is a common source of claims. If it is present, or was present, say so and disclose any treatment plan. Answering "no" when you knew otherwise is one of the easier misrepresentations for a buyer to prove.
3 Disputes, works and flooding: the high-risk areas
Three topics generate most disclosure disputes, so they are worth a closer look. The honest answer is almost always the safer one.
Neighbour disputes
You must disclose disputes even if you feel you were in the right, and even if the matter is now settled. A long-running argument over a boundary, a noise complaint, a row about a shared driveway: all of these count. Buyers care because a dispute can follow the property to them, and the courts have repeatedly treated a failure to disclose a known dispute as misrepresentation.
Alterations and building work
For any work you have had done, the buyer's conveyancer will want the paperwork. That means planning permission where it was needed, building regulations completion certificates, and certificates such as FENSA for replacement windows. If you do not have them, say so. Missing approvals do not always stop a sale, because indemnity insurance can sometimes bridge the gap, but pretending the documents exist when they do not will come out during the legal checks. Property searches often pick up the trail too, as we cover in property searches explained.
Flooding
If the property has flooded, whether from a river, surface water, a burst main or anything else, you must declare it on the TA6. Buyers can check flood-risk data independently, so an undisclosed flood history is easy for them to discover, and it weakens your position badly if it leads to a claim.
4 What honest disclosure looks like in practice
Go through the whole TA6 first so you understand the scope. Answer about what you actually know, not what you assume.
Pull together planning consents, building regulations certificates, guarantees, FENSA certificates and any correspondence with neighbours or the council.
If something might be relevant, declare it. It is not your job to judge whether the buyer will mind. Let them weigh it up.
Where you genuinely do not know, write "not known" rather than guessing. A false "no" is far riskier than an honest "not sure".
Save a dated copy of your completed forms and supporting documents, in case a question comes up after completion.
If you are unsure how to word something, raise it before you submit. Your conveyancer can help you answer accurately and protect your position.
5 The risk of getting it wrong: misrepresentation
If you make a false statement that the buyer relies on, you can be liable for misrepresentation, and the consequences are serious. Depending on the case, a buyer may be able to claim compensation for the loss in value, the cost of fixing a hidden defect, or in some situations they may be able to unwind the sale entirely. This exposure does not end at completion. A claim can be brought months or even years after you have handed over the keys, because the buyer often only finds the problem once they are living there.
Honesty is your best protection, and it is far cheaper than a dispute. Buyers tend to be more forgiving of a problem you told them about than one you hid. A flood you declared, with the details, is a known risk they chose to accept. The same flood, concealed, becomes a possible claim against you. Clear answers also keep the sale moving and cut down the back-and-forth that drags timelines out, which is one of the themes in why property deals fall through.
Over-disclosing a minor issue almost never harms a sale, but under-disclosing a known one can. If you are torn, declare it and let the buyer decide.
None of this should put you off selling. Most sales involve a handful of small disclosures and nothing dramatic. The aim is simply to be straight with the buyer and keep a clear record as you go. If you are weighing up the wider costs of selling, you can compare fixed-fee conveyancing quotes from SRA-regulated solicitors and licensed conveyancers, side by side, free and with no obligation, in about 60 seconds, before you instruct anyone.