The Essential Guide: Documents You Need To Sell Your House (And Free Printable Checklist)
By: Jamie Cole
Tags: Sell House Fast, Property, House Sale, Land Registry, Lease

We are often asked “What documents do I need to sell my house?”. In this guide, we cover all the essential documents you need — if you follow this step by step, you will avoid months of delays and stress.

There are lots of documents that are required to sell a house. And sometimes it can feel overwhelming, especially if this is your first time selling, or you haven’t done it in a long while.

But if you get started early, you will reap the rewards when your house sells quicker. It takes on average circa 290 days to sell a house, from the point of marketing to completion. That can be cut in half with good document preparation (at Sail Homes, we’ve been averaging 57 days to sell a house with this approach).

Just want to download a document checklist? Skip to the bottom

The essential documents you need to sell a house

Regardless of whether you are selling a house with or without an estate agent, you will need to instruct a conveyancer to represent you. They will organise some documents for you, however most of the burden will be on you. These documents will then be shared with the buyer’s conveyancer, who will then investigate all the documents and raise any questions. These documents will be required every time you sell a house.

Summary of essential documents

Title register & plan documents

Proof of ownership

Energy performance certificate (EPC)

Lease

Contract for sale & Transfer deed

Title register & plan documents

The most important documents required to sell a house are the title register and plan. These documents are stored digitally by HM Land Registry. They prove that you own the property and details of the terms of how you own it. For example, if you own the property with other people, or if you used a mortgage to purchase the house, this information will be on the register. The plan is a map that shows the boundaries of the land.

How to get the Title register & plan documents

Anyone can purchase a copy of the title register and plan from the HM Land Registry website. However, in order to sell a property, Official Copy Entries will need to be provided. These can be obtained by your conveyancer (for £3 per document).

Freehold or leasehold?

There are two common types of ownership (aka tenure) — freehold and leasehold. Most houses are freehold, but not always. It’s important you know asap what type of ownership your property is, so you can prepare the right documents to sell. If it is leasehold, then you will need to download the leasehold title register & plan, plus the freehold title register & plan. If you’re unsure if you have a freehold or leasehold property, drop us a message if you’re unsure and we’ll check for you for free.

When to get the Title register & plan documents

Get a copy and review it before you put the property on the market — share this with the estate agent because the information could affect the sale price.

Proof of ownership

Once you have the title register & plan, you will need to provide evidence that you are the owner of the house. A conveyancer will require proof of identification — you have probably done this many times before when opening bank accounts or catching a flight.

You will need to prove that you are the same person as named on the title register. And if there are other people named on the title, you will need them to prove their identity (and agree to the sale of the house!).

In some cases, you may need additional documents, for example if you were selling a deceased parents house. In this scenario, you would need a grant of probate — a document that confirms you have the authority to administer the estate of your deceased parent and therefore, be able to sell their house. If you’re in this situation but unsure how you can get a grant of probate, give us a call and we can let you know how to go about it.

When to complete proof of ownership

Complete all ID checks as soon as you instruct a conveyancer to represent you (you can instruct your conveyancer as early as when you instruct an estate agent).

Energy performance certificate (EPC)

Every house should have a valid energy performance certificate (often abbreviated as EPC). There would have been one when you bought the house, but that may have expired. You can check for your EPC here. If you find your certificate, you can hit ‘Print’ and then store the PDF. Send this to your conveyancer.

If the EPC document has expired, or you can’t find your house on the EPC website, you will need to get a new certificate completed. You will need this to be completed before you sell your house.

How to get a new energy performance certificate (EPC)

You will need an assessor to come to your house and complete some checks — find local assessors here. New EPC documents can cost anything between £50 — £100; give plenty of time to organise in case an assessor can’t get to you for a few weeks.

Once the EPC is ready, the assessor will let you know and send you a copy, or you can find it on the EPC website.

When to get a energy performance certificate (EPC)

Get a copy and review it before you put the property on the market — share this with the estate agent because the information could affect the sale price.

Lease (for leasehold properties only)

If your house is leasehold, you will also need a copy of the lease. If registered with HM Land Registry, they will often have a copy of the lease on file. Your conveyancer will be able to get hold of this for you (for £3). In my experience, many of the questions that a buyer’s conveyancer will ask will be around the lease — it pays dividends to get hold of this as early as possible. You can ask your conveyancer to review it to spot anything that could cause any queries/delays (or contact Sail Legal to review it for you).

When to get the lease

Get a copy and review it before you put the property on the market — share this with the estate agent because the information could affect the sale price.

Contract for sale & transfer deed documents

There are a couple of documents that your conveyancer will prepare. Whilst you don’t need to organise these, you will need to check them over and sign them.

A Property Transfer Deed (also known as TR1) is the document that legally transfers the ownership of a house from you to the buyer. The contract for sale includes the details of the buyers, sellers, address, agreed price and any conditions you may have set.

You can ask your conveyancer if they have prepared them.

When to get the Contract for sale & transfer deed

The conveyancer will prepare these around the same time as you accept an offer. They won’t be ready for signing until you’re ready to exchange.

Common documents you need to sell a house

Summary of common documents

Property Searches

Property information form (TA6)

Fittings and contents form (TA10)

Memorandum of sale (MOS)

Leasehold information form (TA7) & Leasehold pack

Gas Safety Certificate

Electrical Safety Certificate

Planning documents

Floor plan

FENSA certificate

Property Searches

Property Searches are standard enquiries that your conveyancer will make to find out as much information about the property as possible. There are three very important searches, which we will cover here first.

The local authority search — this asks the local council for information on issues relating to planning, building control, highway, pollution and more. This search can take anything between 3 days to 30 days to return (in some extreme circumstances it can take even longer).

Environmental search — this asks the environment agencies for information on issues relating to flooding, landslides, subsidence, contaminated land & more. These searches typically take no more than 24 hours and very often are instant.

Water & Drainage search — this asks the local water company about who owns & maintains sewers, drains & piping, if the property is connected to a public supply and the location of public sewer and drainage pipes. Drainage searches can take anything from 3 days to 30 days.

There are other common searches required — your conveyancer will let you know which ones they deem most likely. Some other common searches are a chancel search, a coal mining search and further investigation into flood risk.

How to get the Property Searches

Typically, it is the buyer who orders the searches, so you’re probably wondering why i’m including it here. Because of the delays to get searches, we’ve found it can pay off to order them early so they are available in time for when the buyer comes along.

Many conveyancers say this is a bad idea because the buyer conveyancer may not accept them, but i’ve only experienced that once in the past year.

If you choose to order them yourself, your conveyancer can order these for you.

When to get the Property Searches

Here at Sail Homes, we order them at the same time that we are instructed to market the property. And when they are returned, we immediately get the conveyancer to review them. This way, we are prepared for anything that could arise that may slow down the sale. If you want a smoother sale, I recommend you do the same! For the sake of £160–200.

Property information form (TA6)

The seller’s property information form (also known as the TA6) is a questionnaire, designed to give your buyer detailed information about the house. The form will cover things like boundaries, disputes, insurance, utilities and more. Based on your answers to these questions, further documents will be needed to sell your house. Later on, we’ll outline some of the most common ones.

How to get the Property information form (TA6)

Ask your conveyancer for a copy of the TA6, or use the sample one here.

When to get the Property information form (TA6)

Do the TA6 as early as possible — we ask our sellers to complete this before we even advertise the house on the market. Once you’ve completed it, ask your conveyancer to review the TA6 early (even before you have an offer) so you can predict the additional documents you will need.

Fittings and contents form (TA10)

The Fittings and contents form allows you as the seller, to identify what’s included in and excluded from the sale price. When you show buyers around your house, it may not be apparent what’s included (for example, white goods, furniture, light fittings etc). This form outlines exactly what is included.

How to get the Fittings and contents form (TA10)

Ask your conveyancer for a copy of the TA6, or use the sample one here.

When to get the Fittings and contents form (TA10)

Similar to the TA6, get this done as early as possible and have your conveyancer review it for any issues.

Memorandum of sale (MOS)

The memorandum of sale (abbreviated as MOS) is a document, typically prepared by the estate agent, that contains all the important details of a property transaction. This document states who the acting conveyancers are, as well as the buyers & sellers. This is used by the conveyancers so they can get in touch with each other and start the process.

How to get the Memorandum of sale (MOS)

If you are using an estate agent, they will prepare this for you. When you accept an offer, ask them if they have all the information to complete a MOS. Sometimes this part gets delayed due to estate agents not being prepared, and it can hold up the conveyancers getting started on their work (on average it used to take agents 11 days…).

Don’t let them waste your valuable time — chase them repeatedly until it’s done (and blame me if they get grumpy with your chasing!). The most common delay for not completing the MOS is because both parties have not instructed a conveyancer yet. If you don’t want to be the one who holds up the process — get a conveyancer instructed early!

When to get the Memorandum of sale (MOS)

The moment you accept an offer, ask the agent. If all the information is ready, then it will take them less than 10 minutes to prepare.

Leasehold information form (TA7) & Leasehold pack

If your property is a leasehold, then there are some important documents to provide. The first, the Leasehold information form (TA7) is something you can complete right away. This captures all the information that you know about the lease, the freeholder, the management company & any other parties involved.

The leasehold pack is something that the freehold owner will complete. This typically costs £100–300, something which you will have to pay. This is a series of documents, that will typically include an LPE1, fire risk assessment, insurances, financial accounts and more.

How to get the Leasehold information form (TA7) & Leasehold pack

Ask your conveyancer for a copy of the TA7, or use the sample one here. For a leasehold pack, you can ask the freehold owner/management company for one. I’m on the fence as to whether it is worthwhile ordering up front.

Due to the huge cost that management companies will put on preparing one, it can sometimes be worth waiting until an offer is accepted before you request one. But definitely find out how much it will cost and how long it will take them to prepare, as soon as possible.

When to get the Leasehold information form (TA7) & Leasehold pack

Similar to the TA6 & TA10, get the TA7 done as early as possible and have your conveyancer review it for any issues. Request information on the leasehold pack as early as possible, but order it as soon as you have accepted an offer.

Gas Safety Certificate

Whilst it’s not a legal requirement to have a gas safety certificate, any good conveyancer representing a buyer will request one. Which is why I include it in my list of essential documents needed to sell a house. A gas safety certificate is provided to you by a registered gas safety engineer, once they have installed or serviced any gas appliances.

How to get a Gas Safety Certificate

If you have a boiler service done regularly, you may have an up-to-date certificate. If you’ve lost it, try ordering a replacement certificate here. But if you don’t have one within the next year, find a local registered gas safety engineer to complete one for you.

When to get a Gas Safety Certificate

You can get this done as early as possible — ideally as soon as you put the property on the market. That way, if anything fails the service, you have time to rectify the problem.

Electrical Safety Certificate

Similar to the gas safety certificate, any good conveyancer representing a buyer will request one an electrical safety certificate too. An electrical safety certificate is provided to you by a qualified electrician, once they have installed or modified any electrics in the house.

How to get an Electrical Safety Certificate

If you have any electrical work done recently, you may have a recent certificate. If you’ve lost it, try ordering a replacement certificate here. But if you don’t have one recently, find a local qualified electrician to complete one for you.

When to get an Electrical Safety Certificate

You can get this done as early as possible — ideally as soon as you put the property on the market. That way, if anything fails the service, you have time to rectify the problem.

Planning documents

If you have made any modifications to the house since you moved in, you will be required to provide all the planning documents, including approval & sign off. Very often, conveyancers will even ask for documents relating to work that happened from before you owned the house. These documents will be used to assure the prospective buyer that all was done in the agreed way and was signed off by planning & building regulation.

How to get Planning documents

You can search your local planning portal — just google ‘planning portal’ + your local authority’s name. Then search for your address. Anything that comes up for it, download the documents and store them, or send to your conveyancer.

When to get Planning documents

If you’ve done the work since you moved in, get all the documents together before you put the property on the market — share this with the estate agent because the information could affect the sale price.

Floor plan

A floor plan is a scale drawing of your house that shows the buyer the layout of the rooms & sizes. Whilst it is useful for marketing purposes, it can also be important to the conveyancing process. Whilst it is rare for there to be a problem, the conveyancer will want to make sure that what you are advertising, lines up with what the title register says you own.

How to get a Floor plan

Your estate agent can get one made for you. Warning — some agents will try and charge extra for a floor plan so be careful that you know whether there are any additional fees.

When to get a Floor plan

As soon as you instruct the estate agent. Whilst they are doing photos & video tours, they should complete the floor plan also.

FENSA Certificate

A FENSA certificate is provided to you whenever you have new windows or doors installed. This gives you the assurance that it has complied with building regulations.

How to get a FENSA certificate

If you have had windows or doors installed since you moved in, then the installer should have left you one. If you’ve lost it, you can order a replacement one here. Often conveyancers will request certificates from before you moved in — if they are insistent on you providing them, you can check your files from when you bought the house, or order replacements from the website above.

When to get a FENSA certificate

Get this done early — ideally as soon as you have instructed an agent to market the property. That way if you run into any issues, you can discuss a remedy with your conveyancer.

Many others

This is not an exhaustive list, but if you prepare all of the above, you will have 90% covered. The sooner you pull all this together, the sooner you will know what else you need. Other useful documents to sell a house include insurance policies, previous documents from when you purchase the house, surveys and if it was built within the last 10 years, warranties.

If you are concerned about how long your sale is going to take, and want some to assess which documents you are likely going to need to speed up the process, reach out to us and we’d be more than happy to take a look.

When should you start preparing documents?

You will receive conflicting information on when you should prepare these documents. Having overseen over 30,000 property transactions, I can tell you that it pays dividends to get these documents prepared as early as possible, so any potential issues can be spotted early if you want to sell your house quickly.

Typical estate ancients & conveyancers follow an ancient process (because that’s how it’s always been done). Some of these documents may cost you money to get together — but when you are talking about the biggest asset you own, it is worth spending £100–200 to get everything correct upfront.

Download our document checklist

We’ve prepared a quick checklist of all the documents above. Print it off and stick it on the fridge, or if you want to save paper, we’ll send you a ‘to do list’ excel sheet we made for you too. Download the checklist here.