For estate agents: upfront sales packs and the listing

Updated 7 November 2026. Applies to England and Wales.

For an estate agent, an upfront sales pack is the material information duty taken to its conclusion: the facts a listing must already not omit, plus the title, searches, condition report and leasehold information, gathered at instruction with a source and date on each item. The pack is voluntary today, becomes a requirement in government homeownership schemes from 2027, and is intended to become law for all listings within this Parliament. A non-statutory Code of Practice for agents is due in 2026 and a consultation on mandatory qualifications in 2027.

A handshake over a model house and a clipboard — An instruction that starts with the pack ends with fewer enquiries after the offer.

The duty that already applies

Since 6 April 2025 the consumer protection provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 have replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. A property listing is an invitation to purchase, and omitting material information from it is an unfair commercial practice. National Trading Standards' Parts A, B and C guidance has been withdrawn, but the categories it described remain the practical checklist: price and tenure; council tax band; for leasehold, the lease length, ground rent and service charge; physical characteristics, utilities and parking; and known risks and restrictions such as flooding, coastal erosion, mining, planning constraints and rights of way. The Competition and Markets Authority now has direct enforcement powers, including fines.

Most of the material information list sits inside the pack's items 1 to 4, 7 and 10. An agency that collects those at instruction has met the duty and has done the first half of the pack.

What the roadmap asks of agents

2026: a non-statutory Code of Practice for estate agents, alongside guidance on listing information and the voluntary pack content agreed with industry.
2027: a consultation on mandatory qualifications for estate agents; packs and logbooks required in government homeownership schemes.
By the end of this Parliament: legislation requiring a sales pack before listing. The seller keeps overall responsibility, but the listing agent is the party who publishes, and the duty not to market without the pack will bite at the listing.

The roadmap also names estate agents among the groups whose repeated processes and lack of transparency add to delay, and sets out an expectation of better visibility of progress for buyers and sellers.

How a pack fits the instruction process

At valuation: check tenure, the EPC and the lease length (for flats) from the registers before the appointment; they are free or £7 and they shape the advice.
At instruction: send the seller the questionnaire (BASPI or the agency's own, covering the material information categories), ask for the lease, guarantees and consents, and for a flat prompt the seller to request the leasehold information pack straight away. Download the title register and plan.
Before launch: commission the EPC if needed, produce the floor plan, and agree with the seller whether searches and a condition report are to be ordered now. Note any item that is pending so the listing can say so.
On the listing: publish the material information and make the rest of the pack available to serious buyers on request or at viewing.
On offer: pass the pack to both conveyancers. Items already in the pack need not be requested again, which is where the time saving comes from.

What agencies report

Firms using digital upfront packs through the open data standard have reported transaction times cut by up to 70 days, identity and onboarding checks completed around 80% faster, and a large fall in fall-through rates. These are industry figures rather than independent audits; the government's own expectation is a saving of around four weeks per transaction. For an agency the tangible effects are fewer viewings consumed by questions the listing could have answered, fewer agreed sales lost to late surprises, and less negotiator time spent chasing documents after the offer.

Who does what

Party	Responsible for
Seller	Overall responsibility for the pack; the accuracy of what they state; paying for the items
Estate agent	Not publishing a listing that omits material information; presenting the pack honestly; marketing, viewings and negotiation
Seller's conveyancer	The legal information: title, TA6 and TA7, replies to enquiries, contract pack
Surveyor	The condition report and its terms of reliance
Search provider, identity provider, freeholder or managing agent	The searches, the identity check and the leasehold information respectively

Collating information for a seller is not itself estate agency work under the Estate Agents Act 1979, and it is not a reserved legal activity under the Legal Services Act 2007 provided no legal advice is given. Advising on the legal effect of a covenant or a search result is for the conveyancer.

Data standards worth knowing

BASPI: the Home Buying and Selling Group's seller questionnaire for the point of marketing, reviewed yearly; the usual basis for agency questionnaires.
Property Data Trust Framework (PDTF): the Open Property Data Association's open schemas for sharing pack data between systems; version 2 maps BASPI, the leasehold forms, searches and the TA forms. Several CRM and pack providers already export to it.
UPRN: the Unique Property Reference Number, the key most data services use to match a property.
HM Land Registry digital identity standard: the standard an identity check should meet if conveyancers are to rely on it rather than repeat it.

The roadmap also intends a voluntary accreditation for property data standards, which agencies may want to ask their software suppliers about.