Society updates property form to support National Trading Standards guidance on material information

By Monidipa Fouzder >>

(26/03/2024)

The Law Society has updated its property form to support National Trading Standards guidance on ‘material information’ required for property listings.

Property agents are obliged under the Consumer Protection Regulations not to omit any material information on property listings and last year National Trading Standards published a full set of guidance detailing the minimum amount of information expected in a listing.

The Society has now released a new TA6 property information form to reflect the guidance. Chancery Lane says the guidance advises sellers to contact their solicitor at an early stage – sellers may therefore ask for help to complete a TA6 form earlier in the process so that more information about the property can be used for marketing.

Society president Nick Emmerson said: ‘Earlier contact between sellers and their solicitors may provide an opportunity to address any issues that could cause delays in the sale process at a later date. We hope that the TA6 will help facilitate the flow of information from marketing a property by estate agents through to the legal process.

‘The aim is that having better informed buyers could help reduce both the time the process takes and the number of sales that fall through.’

The Society’s TA6 form has also been updated in relation to property details, tenure, parking, building safety, restrictive covenants, flood risk and coastal erosion, accessibility, coalfield or mining area, solar panels, connected services, drainage and sewerage and Japanese knotweed.

National Trading Standards’ guidance has proved controversial – with furious property lawyers telling the organisation that much of the responsibility for complying with the guidance will indirectly fall on the sellers’ shoulders.

(Courtesy: The Law Society Gazette)