Before they ask:
What is the TA6 property information form?
The Law Society's Property Information Form. You complete it early in the legal process and it covers alterations, disputes, notices, guarantees, drainage and rights. A vague one generates the enquiry storm that follows.
- How long
- Days to complete, weeks to gather evidence
- Typical cost
- Nil
- Who asks
- Your own conveyancer, on the buyer's behalf
Every seller in England and Wales fills this in. Almost nobody prepares for it, and that is where the delay comes from.
What it is
The TA6 Property Information Form is the Law Society’s standard form on which a seller sets out what they know about the property. Your conveyancer sends it to you, you complete it, and it goes to the buyer’s solicitor as the foundation of the legal enquiries.
It covers, broadly:
- Boundaries — who maintains what
- Disputes and complaints — with neighbours, or about the property
- Notices — anything received about the property or nearby
- Alterations, planning and building control — the big one
- Guarantees and warranties — damp, timber, roofing, windows, boiler, structural
- Insurance — claims history and any unusual terms
- Environmental matters — flooding, radon, Japanese knotweed
- Rights and informal arrangements — access, shared drives, drainage
- Services — how the property is drained, heated and supplied
- Occupiers, and what you are leaving behind
Why a thin one costs weeks
Every uncertain answer generates an enquiry. Every enquiry is a round trip: buyer’s solicitor to your solicitor, your solicitor to you, you to a council or a managing agent or an installer, and back again. Each round trip is days at best.
The form is not the problem. Answering it without having gathered anything first is the problem.
The timing trap. You receive the form after you have accepted an offer. It asks for guarantees, certificates and dates that take weeks to track down. So the document that sets the pace of your entire legal process arrives at exactly the moment you have least time to do it well.
What to do about it
The whole of the preparation idea is here in one sentence: work through what the form asks before you list, not after.
Concretely:
- Alterations. List everything done to the property, by you or anyone before you, with rough dates. Then find the paperwork for each.
- Guarantees. Damp proofing, timber treatment, roofing, windows, boiler, cavity wall insulation, structural work. Find the certificates, and check whether each guarantee is transferable.
- Disputes. Anything with a neighbour, however resolved. These have to be disclosed and they are much less damaging disclosed early.
- Services. How is it drained? Where does it discharge? Is anything shared?
- Rights and arrangements. The informal ones matter — the neighbour who has always crossed the corner of your garden, the shared drive with no written agreement.
Answering honestly
Two principles worth holding onto.
“Not known” is a legitimate answer where you genuinely do not know. It is far safer than a confident guess.
Do not understate. The form is relied upon, and an inaccurate answer is a materially worse problem than the thing it was concealing. If something is awkward, that is a conversation to have with your conveyancer, whose job includes exactly this.
Common questions
When do I get sent it?
Usually shortly after you instruct a conveyancer, which is after your offer is accepted. That is the timing problem in a sentence: the form asks for evidence that takes weeks to gather, and you first see it after the clock has started.
What happens if I answer 'not known'?
It is a legitimate answer where you genuinely do not know, and much safer than guessing. But a form full of them invites follow-up enquiries, each of which adds a cycle of correspondence. The aim is to reduce the count honestly, by finding things out, not by asserting things you are unsure of.
Can I get the form early?
You can look at what it asks. The form itself is a Law Society publication and its scope is well documented. Working through the questions before you list is exactly the preparation almost nobody does, and it is most of the value in preparing at all.
Is the form changing?
It has been under revision. A fourth edition attempting to fold in material information met a profession-wide backlash and was withdrawn, and a further edition has been in drafting. The practical point for a seller is that the underlying questions — what have you altered, what disputes exist, what are you leaving behind — are stable even while the form is not.
Last reviewed 13 September 2026. England and Wales.
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