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Farra is a death administration assistant for UK families. Get step-by-step guidance for registering a death, applying for probate, notifying banks, and managing bereavement admin. From essential documents to practical checklists, Farra simplifies estate paperwork and funeral-related tasks so you can focus on what matters.
You work through the form question by question, answering honestly from what you actually know and from the documents you can find in the house. Where you genuinely do not know, you write "not known". You then sign as the seller in your capacity as personal representative, and your conveyancer sends the form to the buyer's solicitor. This guide walks you through it, written for someone who never lived in the property and is doing this for the first time.
The TA6 is the Law Society's Property Information Form. It is completed by the seller in almost every residential sale in England and Wales, and it tells the buyer what the seller knows about the property: the boundaries, any disputes, alterations that have been made, whether the electrics have been checked, and much more.
For most sellers, the TA6 is tedious but straightforward. They lived in the house, so they know the answers. You are in a different position. You are selling a home you may never have lived in, perhaps never even visited often, on behalf of someone who is no longer here to ask. The form was not designed with you in mind, and it can feel impossible when it first arrives.
It is not impossible. The law does not expect you to know things you could not know. It expects you to be honest, to make reasonable efforts, and to say clearly where your knowledge runs out. That is the whole of the task, and this guide shows you how to do it well.
The TA6 is one part of a wider sale process. For the full picture, see our pillar guide to selling an inherited house, and our companion guide to conveyancing for a probate sale.
The current version is the TA6 6th edition, published by the Law Society in 2025. It is mandatory for all transactions where the seller's solicitor was instructed on or after 30 March 2026. Before that date, firms were still permitted to use the older 4th and 5th editions, so if your sale started earlier you may see one of those instead.
The 6th edition has 15 sections, which is 10 fewer than the 5th edition. It was deliberately streamlined, which is good news for you: there is less to wade through, and the questions are more focused on what a buyer genuinely needs to know.
You do not need to source the form yourself. Your conveyancer will send you the correct edition, usually with explanatory notes. If you want to read ahead, the Law Society publishes guidance on the 6th edition on its website (linked in the sources at the end of this guide).
When you complete the TA6, you sign it as the seller, but in your capacity as personal representative of the estate. "Personal representative" is the legal term for the person authorised to deal with a deceased person's affairs: an executor if there is a will, or an administrator if there is not.
This matters because the buyer can rely on the answers you give. If an answer turns out to be wrong, and it was given carelessly rather than honestly, the buyer may have a misrepresentation claim against the estate and its personal representatives. A misrepresentation claim is a legal claim that the buyer was induced to buy by a false statement, and it can result in the estate paying compensation.
The one rule: never guess
A guess that turns out right earns you nothing. A guess that turns out wrong can cost the estate money and cause you months of stress. If you do not know whether the loft conversion had building regulations approval, do not tick "yes" because it probably did. Write "not known" and let the buyer's solicitor investigate. That is exactly what the form allows for.
The flip side is genuinely reassuring. "Not known" is an acceptable, honest answer wherever you genuinely do not know, and buyers' solicitors expect to see more "not known" answers in probate sales. They deal with estates all the time. A form full of careful, honest answers with gaps clearly marked is far better, legally and practically, than a form full of confident guesses.
Before you settle for "not known", it is worth doing some detective work. Many TA6 questions can be answered properly with an hour or two of searching, and every real answer you give makes the sale smoother. Here is where to look.
Do not clear the house before you have hunted for paperwork
This is the mistake that catches executors out most often. In the early weeks there is enormous pressure to empty the property, and it is easy for a box of boring-looking documents to end up in a skip. Those documents are your TA6 answers. Go through every drawer, folder and box for property paperwork before anything leaves the house. Our guide to clearing a house after a death covers how to sequence this properly.
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The 6th edition groups its questions into 15 sections, and the ones executors ask about most are below.
The TA6 6th edition covers the following ground. You do not need to memorise this list, but knowing what is coming makes the form feel much less daunting, and tells you which documents to hunt for first.
Notice the pattern: for almost every section there is either a document, a person or a public record that can give you a real answer, and where there is not, "not known" stands as the honest response.
Here is how the TA6 fits into your sale in practice.
If a question worries you, or you are not sure whether something counts as a dispute or a notice, ask your conveyancer before you answer. That is what they are there for, and a two-minute phone call is far cheaper than a wrong answer.
Be kind to yourself with this
Executors often describe the TA6 as the moment the sale suddenly felt overwhelming: pages of questions about a house full of memories, asked as if you should know everything. You are not expected to know everything. Doing this carefully, honestly and in stages is exactly what doing it right looks like.
Yes, where you genuinely do not know the answer. "Not known" is an honest, acceptable response, and buyers' solicitors expect more of them in probate sales. What you should not do is use it as a blanket answer without checking the sources available to you, such as the deceased's papers, the local authority's planning records and the neighbours. Real answers where you can find them, "not known" where you cannot.
The buyer can rely on the answers in the TA6. If an answer is wrong and was given carelessly, the buyer may bring a misrepresentation claim against the estate and its personal representatives. An honest "not known" carries no such risk, which is why the golden rule is never to guess. If you are unsure how to answer a question, ask your conveyancer.
In practice, yes. The TA6 is completed by the seller in almost every residential sale in England and Wales, and as executor you are the seller, acting as personal representative of the estate. Your conveyancer will send you the form and can guide you through it. The form accommodates your position: you answer from your actual knowledge, not the knowledge a living owner would have had.
The TA6 6th edition, published in 2025, is mandatory for all transactions where the seller's solicitor was instructed on or after 30 March 2026. It has 15 sections, 10 fewer than the 5th edition. Sales that began before that date may still use the 4th or 5th edition. Your conveyancer will supply the correct version.
Start with the deceased's papers: guarantees, FENSA certificates, planning consents, building regulations certificates and utility bills. Then widen out: the freeholder or managing agent for a leasehold, neighbours for boundaries and disputes, the council's public planning portal for planning history, and the insurer for claims history. Most executors can answer far more of the form than they first expect.
No. Search the house for property paperwork first, because guarantees, certificates and consents are exactly the documents that answer the TA6's questions, and once they are in a skip they are gone. Set aside time to go through drawers, files and boxes before the clearance, then clear the house knowing the paperwork is safe.
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