For sellers: preparing an upfront sales pack

Updated 7 November 2026. Applies to England and Wales.

A seller can gather most of an upfront sales pack personally: the title register and plan (£7 each from HM Land Registry), the EPC and council tax band (free lookups), the questionnaire answers, the floor plan, accessibility details and chain status. Four items must come from someone else: the EPC if yours has expired (an accredited assessor), the searches (a regulated search provider, or the council and water company directly), the condition report (a qualified surveyor) and, for flats, the leasehold information (the freeholder or managing agent).

Nothing beyond the EPC and the material information duty is compulsory yet, but a pack prepared now will not need redoing when the law arrives.

A person completing paperwork at a desk — The seller's own part of a pack is an hour or two of questions and finding paperwork.

What you must do before marketing today

Commission an Energy Performance Certificate before the home is advertised, if there is no valid one (they last ten years; check the register free on GOV.UK). You must then obtain it within 28 days. An accredited domestic energy assessor charges roughly £60 to £90.
Make sure the listing does not omit material information. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 applies to whoever markets the home, so an agent will ask you for tenure, lease details, council tax band, and known issues such as flooding, disputes or unconsented alterations. If you sell without an agent the duty falls on you.

What you can gather yourself

Item	Where to get it	Cost	Time
Tenure and title information (items 1 and 5)	HM Land Registry: download the title register and title plan on GOV.UK	£7 each	Minutes
Council tax band (2)	GOV.UK council tax band lookup	Free	Minutes
EPC rating (3)	GOV.UK "find an energy certificate"	Free if valid	Minutes
Property type (4)	You	Free	Minutes
General property information (10)	The BASPI questionnaire or your conveyancer's TA6; gather guarantees, planning and building regulation certificates, FENSA and Gas Safe records	Free	An hour or two, plus finding documents
Accessibility (12)	You	Free	Minutes
Chain status (13)	You	Free	Minutes; update as it changes
Floor plan (14)	Sketch with measurements, a phone app, your agent, or a measured-plan provider	Free to about £50	An hour
Lease and your side of leasehold terms (7, part)	Your copy of the lease, service charge statements, ground rent demands	Free	Finding the documents

What must come from someone else

Energy Performance Certificate (if expired): Only an accredited domestic energy assessor can produce one. Find one through the GOV.UK register; expect a visit of under an hour and the certificate within a few days.
Searches (item 9): You can apply to the local authority and water company yourself, but most sellers and conveyancers use a regulated search provider that returns the local, drainage and water, environmental and any locality searches as one set for roughly £250 to £450. Providers that follow the Search Code are accepted by most lenders. Searches carry a date; if the sale is agreed many months later a buyer's lender may want them refreshed.
Condition report (item 11): A qualified surveyor, typically RICS-regulated, produces a Home Survey at Level 1, 2 or 3. Level 2 is the common choice for a conventional home. Allow one to two weeks for the visit and the report. The government has not yet said which level the legal minimum will be.
Identity verification (item 6): Your conveyancer will verify your identity in any case. Doing it early through a provider certified under the UK digital identity trust framework, to HM Land Registry's standard, means the check can be relied on by other parties later.
Leasehold information (items 7 and 8, flats and some estates): The freeholder or managing agent completes the LPE1 form with service charge accounts, ground rent, insurance, major works and building safety details. They charge for it (typically £150 to £400 today) and can take several weeks. Request it first, before anything else. See Selling a leasehold flat.

A sensible order

Start the slow items first. For a flat, request the leasehold information pack today. Book the surveyor. Check the EPC and book an assessor if it has expired.
Download the title register and plan and read them. Check that the names match yours, note any covenants, easements and restrictions, and check that the plan matches the boundaries you occupy.
Order the searches, or ask your conveyancer to, once you are sure you are selling.
Complete the questionnaire and gather the paperwork: planning and building regulation certificates for any alterations, guarantees, boiler and electrical certificates, the lease, service charge statements.
Fix what you can. A missing building regulation certificate, an unregistered extension or a lapsed guarantee is cheaper to resolve before marketing than after an offer, when it becomes a reason to renegotiate.
Produce the floor plan and note accessibility and chain status.
Keep everything together with dates, so whoever receives it, an agent, a buyer or a conveyancer, can see what each item is and when it was obtained.

Does it matter whether I use an estate agent?

No. The pack belongs to the seller and is useful whichever way you sell. With an agent, it lets them meet the material information duty on day one and answer enquiries without coming back to you. Selling privately, it gives both conveyancers what they need. Either way, your conveyancer will use the same information to complete the formal TA6 and TA7 forms once an offer is accepted.

Who pays, and what it is likely to cost

The seller, as the reform intends. The government's estimate of the extra upfront cost is around £310, which assumes a light condition report and free digital data. At today's prices a full set of searches and a Level 2 survey for a freehold house comes to roughly £500 to £900; a flat adds the leasehold information fee. The searches and the survey are things a buyer would otherwise pay for later in the sale, so some of the cost shifts rather than increases. Details are in What a pack costs and how long it takes.

Your responsibility for accuracy

The roadmap keeps overall responsibility for the pack with the seller, as it is today for the TA6. Items that come from a register or a professional carry their own provenance; items you state are your statements, and a buyer may rely on them. Answer what you know, say when you do not know, and keep the documents behind each answer. A pack with a source and a date on every item is the one a conveyancer trusts.