The TA7 leasehold information form is the standard disclosure document you complete when selling a flat, maisonette, shared-ownership property, or long leasehold house in England and Wales. It tells the buyer what you know about the lease, the ground rent, service charges, building management, insurance, alterations, disputes, and building safety. Your solicitor supplies the form, you fill it in from personal knowledge, and your answers become part of the contract with the buyer. Getting it right the first time is what keeps the sale moving.
How You Get the Form
The TA7 is not something you download yourself. The Law Society distributes it only through approved suppliers such as InfoTrack, LexisNexis Smart Forms, and Shaw & Sons, and your solicitor or licensed conveyancer accesses the current edition (the 5th edition, updated October 2025) through whichever supplier their firm uses.1The Law Society. Transaction (TA) Forms There’s no separate fee for the form; it’s part of what your solicitor does as your conveyancer.
What to Gather Before You Start
The form asks for supporting documents alongside your answers. Pulling these together before you begin saves you from starting the form, stalling halfway, and coming back weeks later:
- Your lease and any supplemental deeds
- Service charge demands, accounts, and receipts for the past three years
- Ground rent statements
- The buildings insurance policy or schedule
- Any landlord regulations or house rules
- Licences to alter for any changes made to the property
- The EWS1 form for the building, if there is one
- A Leaseholder Deed of Certificate, if one has been completed
If any document is missing, note that now rather than discovering it when you’re mid-answer.
Ground Rent
Write down the current annual ground rent and the next review date. Both appear in your lease. If your lease was granted after 30 June 2022, the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 caps the permitted rent at a peppercorn, meaning no real financial value.2Legislation.gov.uk. Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 For older leases, quote whatever the lease actually says, and if there’s an escalation clause (rent doubling every 25 years, for example), reproduce the mechanism exactly. Buyers’ lenders read these clauses closely, and paraphrasing invites an enquiry asking for the precise wording anyway.
Service Charges and Reserve Funds
Attach the last three years of service charge accounts. These show what leaseholders have been charged for maintenance, cleaning, insurance, and management. If the building has a reserve fund (sometimes called a sinking fund), disclose the current balance. Money collected from leaseholders for service charges is trust money under Section 42 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, held in ring-fenced accounts for building costs.3Legislation.gov.uk. Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, Section 42
The form asks about any large expenditure expected in the next three years. If you know a roof replacement, lift refurbishment, or communal redecoration is planned, say so. Omitting known future costs is one of the most common reasons buyers renegotiate the price or walk away.
Section 20 Major Works Notices
If your landlord has proposed qualifying works where any single leaseholder’s contribution would exceed £250, they must run a formal Section 20 consultation. The process has at least two notice stages, each giving leaseholders a minimum of 30 days to respond. If the landlord skips or mishandles the consultation, each leaseholder’s liability is capped at £250 regardless of what the works actually cost.4Landmark Chambers. Service Charge Consultation Requirements, Demands and Costs If you’ve received a Section 20 notice, disclose it. The buyer’s side will find out through the LPE1 anyway, and concealment mid-transaction damages trust badly.
Insurance
State who arranges the buildings insurance, give the insurer’s name and policy number, and attach the current schedule. Most leases put this on the landlord or management company, but some leases place it on individual leaseholders, so check your own before answering. If the building has struggled to obtain insurance because of cladding issues, note that and share whatever documentation you have.
Alterations
Declare any alterations made to the property, by you or by previous owners as far as you know: new bathrooms, removed walls, new flooring, pet flaps. Most leases require the landlord’s written consent for structural or material changes. If you have the licence to alter, attach it. If you don’t, say so plainly. Retrospective consent is usually available but takes time and a fee, so raising it now lets your solicitor pursue it in parallel with the conveyancing rather than having the sale grind to a halt when the buyer’s solicitor spots the gap.
Disputes and Notices
Disclose disputes with neighbours, the landlord, or the management company, including ones already resolved. Also mention any formal notices you’ve received, such as the landlord’s intention to sell the freehold, or any Right to Manage claim you’ve been part of. A brief factual description takes less time than defending a blank “no” that later turns out to be wrong.
Building Safety: EWS1 and the Deed of Certificate
The EWS1 Form
If the building is five or more storeys or 11 metres or taller, the buyer’s lender is likely to require an EWS1 form. It’s a fire safety assessment of the building’s external wall system, completed by a qualified professional, confirming whether the walls meet current safety standards.5UK Parliament. The Cladding External Wall System (EWS) The form is issued to the building rather than individual flats, so you obtain it from the landlord or building manager. Attach a copy if there is one. If there isn’t, or an assessment is in progress, explain the current status. An ambiguous EWS1 position stalls mortgage offers, so clarity here matters.6Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Cladding External Wall System (EWS) FAQs
Leaseholder Deed of Certificate
The Building Safety Act 2022 protects qualifying leaseholders from paying for remediation of historical building defects, including cladding. Whether you qualify depends on how the flat was owned or occupied on 14 February 2022. If on that date the flat was your main home, or you owned no more than three UK properties in total, you’re likely a qualifying leaseholder entitled to full protection against cladding remediation costs and capped costs for non-cladding defects.7GOV.UK. Leaseholder Protections: Deed of Certificate – Frequently Asked Questions
Your landlord can request a Leaseholder Deed of Certificate when they learn you intend to sell or when a relevant defect is found in the building. You get at least eight weeks to complete it, with a further four weeks if you ask. If you don’t complete the deed, the landlord can treat your lease as non-qualifying, and the buyer inherits weaker protections. Keep a copy: the buyer’s solicitor will almost certainly ask for it alongside your TA7 answers.7GOV.UK. Leaseholder Protections: Deed of Certificate – Frequently Asked Questions
Order the LPE1 on Day One
The TA7 captures what you know. The LPE1 (Leasehold Property Enquiries) captures what the landlord and managing agent know: verified service charge accounts, ground rent arrears, insurance details, planned works, consent records for alterations.8The Law Society. Leasehold Forms Your solicitor cross-references the two, and any discrepancy generates additional enquiries.
Managing agents charge somewhere between £100 and £500 for the LPE1 pack, and turnaround runs from a week to more than a month depending on the firm. That fee sits on top of your solicitor’s conveyancing costs and is yours to pay. Request it the same day you instruct your solicitor, or even before you list. Waiting until the buyer’s solicitor asks for it is what turns a four-week conveyance into a three-month one.
Mistakes That Cost You Time (or the Sale)
Blank fields and vague “N/A” answers are the top cause of additional enquiries. If you genuinely don’t know something, write “not known” and briefly explain why. That’s safer than an answer that turns out to be wrong.
Concealing past disputes, even resolved ones, backfires regularly. The LPE1 or the buyer’s own searches usually surface them, and discovery mid-transaction can collapse a sale.
Undocumented alterations catch many sellers off guard. If a previous owner knocked through a wall, or you laid hardwood without checking whether the lease required permission, flag it now so your solicitor can seek retrospective consent while conveyancing continues.
Service charge surprises, such as a major works programme the seller forgot about or a recent steep increase, are a frequent trigger for renegotiation. Check with the managing agent before answering the “expected expenditure in the next three years” question.
What Happens If Your Answers Are Wrong
Your TA7 answers become part of the contract with the buyer. If the buyer relies on something you stated that turns out to be false, they can bring a claim under Section 2(1) of the Misrepresentation Act 1967. Under that provision, you’re liable for damages as if the misrepresentation were fraudulent, unless you can prove you had reasonable grounds to believe the statement was true at the time contracts were exchanged.9Legislation.gov.uk. Misrepresentation Act 1967, Section 2 The court can also rescind the contract, unwinding the sale.
Your duty doesn’t stop when you hand the form to your solicitor. If an answer becomes wrong before exchange, for example you receive a Section 20 notice after submitting the form, you must update your replies. Failing to update can itself amount to misrepresentation. Blanket disclaimer clauses that sellers sometimes add offer limited protection; courts have found them unreasonable under the Misrepresentation Act and the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.
When a Document Can’t Be Found
Sometimes the document the TA7 asks for simply doesn’t exist. The original lease has been lost, a historic licence to alter was never kept, or the freeholder is uncontactable. In those cases your solicitor can arrange indemnity insurance to cover the buyer and their lender against the risk the missing document creates. Policies for common leasehold gaps like an absent freeholder typically cost between £100 and £300. Indemnity doesn’t fix the underlying problem, but it lets the transaction proceed rather than collapsing over a piece of paper nobody can produce.
A Note on Reform
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024. Some provisions have commenced, including changes to Right to Manage costs and restrictions on landlords recovering non-litigation costs through service charges.10Legislation.gov.uk. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 (Commencement No. 2) Regulations 2025 The valuation changes that will affect lease extensions, including the abolition of marriage value, are not yet in force and require further secondary legislation.11House of Commons Library. Leasehold Reform in England and Wales: What’s Happening and When? For completing the TA7 today the practical impact is small, but expect buyers to ask about your unexpired lease term and any extension negotiations already under way. Straight answers now avoid awkward corrections later.