Mistakes to Avoid
10 Disclosure Mistakes to Avoid When Selling a Leasehold Flat
Selling a flat with a problem or two you would rather not mention? Staying quiet can feel like the easier option, but hidden issues tend to surface later and unravel the sale.
Why Disclosure Catches Flat Sellers Out
Most disclosure problems start with a moment of hesitation. A seller knows about something, maybe a past leak from the flat above, an alteration done without the freeholder's permission or a neighbour who is hard work, and they are not sure whether to mention it. The worry is that owning up will put a buyer off. More often than not, though, the honest answer is the safer one, and this guide explains why and where the real risks lie.
The instinct to stay quiet is strongest with the issues a buyer cannot easily find for themselves. Plenty about a leasehold flat does come out in the paperwork: the lease, the service charge accounts and the management pack all get read by the buyer's solicitor. But some things are known only to you, and those are exactly what the property forms are designed to bring to light. Leave one of them off, and that is where the trouble can start, sometimes only catching up with the seller long after the sale has completed.
This guide is written for England and Wales. It looks at which disclosure duties are yours and which are your estate agent's, then at what the management pack will and will not reveal, before going through the ten disclosure mistakes that catch leasehold flat sellers out most often. If a problem with your flat has already stalled a sale, our guide to conveyancing mistakes covers the legal-stage pitfalls in more detail.
Why Leasehold Disclosure Is Different from Selling a House
Selling any property carries a duty not to mislead the buyer. A leasehold flat adds a second layer on top of the bricks and mortar: a lease that sets out what you can and cannot do, a freeholder (and often a managing agent) and a building you share with other people. Each of those brings facts a buyer will want to know about, from the ground rent and the service charge to who runs the block and whether any major works are on the horizon.
That extra leasehold layer is the reason a flat sale asks more of a seller than a house sale does. A buyer of a freehold house mostly needs to understand the building and the boundaries. A buyer of your flat is also taking on your lease, your share of the building's costs and your relationship with the freeholder, so the things you are expected to disclose run wider too. If you are new to how all this fits together, our guide on leasehold versus freehold sets out the differences.
Two Duties, Not One: Yours and Your Estate Agent's
It helps to separate two different responsibilities, because sellers often assume the whole job sits with the agent. Since 6 April 2025 the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (the DMCC Act, the law that governs how property is advertised, replacing the older consumer-protection rules) has required "material information", anything that would affect a typical buyer's decision, to appear in the listing. That duty falls on the estate agent, and the Competition and Markets Authority enforces it.
Your own duty sits alongside the agent's, and it is personal to you. When you complete the pre-contract forms and answer the buyer's enquiries, you are making statements the buyer relies on, and you can be held to them under the Misrepresentation Act 1967. The agent can only put on the listing what you tell them, so the buck does not stop at the agent's desk. In practice the two duties pull in the same direction: give the agent and your solicitor the full picture, and both duties are met at once. Hold something back, and you have exposed yourself regardless of what the agent did.
But Isn't It "Buyer Beware"?
A question sellers often ask is whether the old rule of caveat emptor, Latin for "buyer beware", lets them off the hook. It is a fair question, and the rule does still apply in England and Wales: you have no general duty to volunteer every last thing about the flat, and the buyer is expected to make their own checks and commission their own survey. What "buyer beware" does not do is excuse a false or evasive answer. Once the TA6 and TA7 put a direct question to you, you have to answer it honestly.
What counts is the difference between what you know and what you do not. If you know about a problem and the form asks about it, you must disclose it, and the fact that the buyer could in theory have found it for themselves is no defence. If you genuinely do not know something, that is where the buyer's own investigations come in, and an honest "not known" is a perfectly proper answer. The rule is also narrower than many sellers think: on the listing side, the DMCC Act now puts the onus on the agent to set out the material facts, so the idea that a buyer is entirely on their own is out of date.
What the Management Pack Shows, and What It Does Not
When you sell, the buyer's solicitor reviews the management pack: the LPE1 form and supporting documents from the freeholder or managing agent. The pack is good at surfacing the money and the building side of things: the service charge accounts and any arrears, the ground rent, the buildings insurance, the reserve fund and any major works the managing agent has consulted on. Disputes the freeholder or managing agent is formally involved in tend to show up too. If something is on their records, assume the buyer will see it.
What the pack does not show is anything the freeholder and managing agent never knew about. An alteration you made without telling them, a leak from the flat above that you sorted privately, a run-in with a neighbour that never became a formal complaint, a quiet breach of the lease such as letting the flat short-term against the rules: none of that is in their files, so none of it reaches the buyer through the pack. These are the issues sellers are most tempted to keep quiet, on the reasoning that nobody will find out. The catch is that the property forms ask about them directly, and an answer you know to be wrong is the very thing that can unravel a sale after completion. The mistakes below run roughly in that order, starting with the issues only you know about.
Mistake 1
Staying Quiet About a Problem Only You Know
The hardest disclosures are the ones no document will catch: a past leak from the flat above, damp that keeps coming back, a recurring drainage smell or a pest problem such as mice or moths. A buyer viewing on a dry afternoon will not see any of it, and the management pack will not mention it, so the temptation to say nothing is real. The TA6 Property Information Form (the standard form on which a seller sets out what they know about the property) asks about exactly these things, which turns silence into a misleading answer rather than a simple omission.
A hidden defect is also the disclosure failure most likely to come back on you. Once a buyer has moved in and the problem reappears, they can look back at the answer you gave and act on it, which is how completed sales get unwound. The better course is to describe the issue plainly, say what you did about it and keep any receipts or reports. A problem that has been dealt with and documented is far less alarming to a buyer than the same problem discovered later with no explanation attached.
Mistake 2
Hiding an Alteration Done Without Consent
This is the issue sellers most often think they can get away with, precisely because the management pack will not give it away. If you knocked through a wall, fitted a new bathroom, took up the floor or replaced the windows and the lease required the freeholder's permission, there will be nothing about it in the freeholder's records, since no one ever asked for consent. So the reasoning goes: who is going to know?
Several people, as it turns out. The buyer's surveyor may spot a removed wall or non-original layout, the buyer's solicitor asks about alterations as a matter of course and the TA7 Leasehold Information Form (the leasehold companion to the TA6) puts the question to you directly. If you have made changes without the freeholder's consent, you have a couple of options: get the consent in place before you list, or where that is not practical, line up the alternative of indemnity insurance with your solicitor and disclose the position to the buyer. Our guide on alterations to a leasehold flat explains what consent the lease usually requires, and the Licence to Alter guide covers the formal route to putting it right.
Mistake 3
Saying There Are No Disputes, When There Have Been Problems
The TA6 asks whether there have been any disputes or complaints about the property or a neighbouring one, and whether you know of anything that might lead to one. This is where a difficult history with the building tends to surface: a neighbour who throws a party every Saturday night, a long-running parking dispute, an unpredictable resident, repeated noise. These rarely appear in any pack, so the honest answer depends entirely on you. Brushing the question aside with a flat "no" when there is a real history behind it is a misleading reply.
The complication is that you may genuinely feel the buyer will be fine. A clash with one particular neighbour can be personal, and the next owner may never have a cross word with them. That judgement is a fair one to raise, but it is your call to make on the wording, with your solicitor's help, not something to settle by leaving the answer blank. Set out what happened, say why you think it may not affect the buyer and let the form reflect that honestly.
Worth knowing: a complaint leaves a trail. The moment you put a complaint in writing (whether to the managing agent, a neighbour, the council or anyone else), it is on record, and a recorded dispute is something you then have to disclose. If you are weighing up a formal complaint and a sale is on the horizon, think it through first. Raising it may be the right thing to do, but be aware it can become something you have to declare to the next buyer.
Mistake 4
Giving Different Answers to Different People
A surprising number of sales come unstuck not because of one big concealment but because the seller's account does not line up. You mention to a viewer that the service charge "jumped last year", then the form gives a lower figure. You tell the agent the windows are recent, then the alterations question on the TA7 says nothing about them. The buyer's solicitor reads everything side by side, and an inconsistency is the thread they pull.
Once an answer looks shaky, a cautious solicitor stops taking your replies at face value and raises enquiry after enquiry, which is how a sale slows to a crawl and a buyer loses confidence. The fix is dull but effective: decide what the accurate answer is, give that same answer to the agent, on the forms and in conversation, and do not embellish at viewings. Consistency is not about polish; it is what tells a buyer the information they are relying on is solid.
Mistake 5
Glossing Over Letting, Subletting or Pet Restrictions
Many leases limit what you can do with the flat: a ban on short-term lets such as Airbnb, a requirement to get consent before subletting or a no-pets clause. These restrictions sit in the lease itself, so a buyer's solicitor will usually find them. Two things, though, depend on you. The first is whether a restriction matters to this buyer: someone planning to let the flat out needs to know about a subletting clause early, not at the eleventh hour. The second, and the riskier one, is whether you have actually complied.
If you have been letting the flat short-term against the lease, or sublet without the consent the lease required, that breach is not in the management pack, but the TA7 asks about it and a buyer is entitled to a truthful answer. A breach left undisclosed can give the freeholder grounds to act and can surface in the buyer's checks later. Our guides on renting out your leasehold flat and selling with a no-subletting clause set out how these terms work and how to handle a sale around them.
Mistake 6
Forgetting Building Safety and Cladding
For flats in larger blocks, building safety is now one of the first things a buyer's lender looks at. If the block has cladding or fire-safety issues, the buyer's solicitor and surveyor will want the EWS1 form (the External Wall System assessment lenders rely on to judge whether a building is mortgageable) and the current remediation position. Much of this lives with the freeholder or managing agent and comes through in the pack, but you should not assume the buyer will piece it together unaided.
Disclose what you know about the building's safety status and hand over any EWS1 or correspondence you hold. You are not expected to know everything about the building's safety, so do not worry if you are unsure: share what you have and be honest about the rest. It is worth being ready for this stage, though, as safety checks can take time and require some patience on both sides. Our guide on EWS1 and cladding explains what the form covers and how it affects a flat sale.
Mistake 7
Failing to Mention Major Works, Even If Only Proposed
A large repair bill heading down the line is one of the most material facts about a flat, and one of the most tempting to leave until later. If the freeholder has run, or is about to run, a Section 20 consultation (the process a freeholder must follow before charging leaseholders for large works), a buyer could be facing a charge of thousands of pounds soon after completion. The TA7 asks whether you are aware of any such works, and "proposed but not yet confirmed" still counts as something you are aware of.
Find out the position from the managing agent before you list, and put any known or likely bill on the table. A buyer who knows a £6,000 roof contribution is coming can factor it into their offer; the same buyer who discovers it through their own solicitor mid-sale tends to renegotiate hard or pull out. Disclosing early also protects you, since a known major-works bill you said nothing about is a textbook misrepresentation. Our guide on service charges explains how these costs are levied.
Mistake 8
Understating the Service Charge
The service charge is one of the numbers a buyer considers most carefully, so getting it wrong, or quoting a lower (or out of date) figure, causes problems later in the conveyancing process. Giving last year's lower amount when this year's has risen, ignoring a balancing charge (the top-up demand when actual costs come in above the estimate) or glossing over a known increase all leave a gap between what you said and what the accounts in the pack show. The buyer's solicitor reads those accounts, so the real figure comes out regardless.
Quote the current annual charge accurately, mention any recent or expected increase and flag a reserve-fund shortfall if you know of one. The point is not to make the flat look cheap to run; it is to make sure the figure you give matches the paperwork, so the buyer trusts the rest of what you have told them. A service charge that is higher than ideal but honestly stated rarely derails a sale; a figure that turns out to be understated often does.
Mistake 9
Not Disclosing the Ground Rent Properly
Ground rent is usually a relatively low number, often no more than a few hundred pounds a year. What matters to a buyer, and to their lender, is how it behaves over time: whether it is fixed, whether it rises with inflation and, the part that can break a deal, whether it doubles at set intervals. A doubling or fast-escalating ground rent can make a flat hard to mortgage and harder to sell, so quoting only the current amount and saying nothing about the review pattern leaves out the part that actually affects the buyer.
Give the current ground rent and the review terms from the lease, in full. If the lease has an onerous clause, a buyer will find it anyway when their solicitor reads the lease, so there is nothing to gain by underplaying it and a misrepresentation risk in trying. Our guides on ground rent and ground rent problems explain which clauses cause difficulty and what can be done about them.
Mistake 10
Filling In the Property Forms Carelessly
All of the above comes together on the forms. The TA6 and TA7 are where your knowledge of the flat is set down in writing, and they are completed under your own name, not the agent's. The common errors are rushing them or guessing an answer rather than checking. Another is ticking the "not known" box as a way of sidestepping a question you would rather not answer. "Not known" is meant for something you genuinely have no knowledge of, not a polite way to avoid a difficult truth.
Treat the forms as the single most important disclosure you make, because legally they are. Base your answers on the actual paperwork rather than from memory, and that paperwork is wider than the formal documents: as well as the lease, the accounts and the ground rent demands, an email from the managing agent or the minutes of a residents' association meeting can all tell you something you need to declare. Write "not known" only when it is true, and tell your solicitor about anything you are unsure how to phrase rather than guessing what sounds right. Disclosure is not a one-off either: if something changes between completing the forms and exchange, a fresh Section 20 notice, a new insurance issue, you need to update the buyer. Getting the paperwork ready early gives you the time to do all this properly instead of in a rush as the sale heats up.
Should You Get a Survey Before You Sell?
Sellers sometimes ask whether they should commission a survey before putting the flat on the market. There is no legal requirement to, and in most sales it is the buyer, not the seller, who arranges one. The decision is yours, but it comes with a catch worth understanding: anything a survey turns up becomes something you know about, and therefore something you may have to disclose. A pre-sale survey that flags damp or a structural problem does not let you un-know it.
That is not to say a survey is always the wrong move; for an unusual or older flat it can help you price sensibly and avoid surprises mid-sale. The point is to go in with your eyes open. If you would rather not generate a list of defects you then have to declare, you are under no obligation to commission one, and leaving the survey to the buyer is the usual way round.
Selling a probate or inherited flat
Executors and people who have inherited a flat are in a particular position: they often never lived there and know very little about it. The honest course is the same as for any seller, answer what you know and write "not known" where you genuinely do not. An executor is not expected to know everything about a flat they have never occupied, and a buyer's solicitor will understand replies that are more limited than usual. What matters is that the answers are truthful, not that they are exhaustive.
For the same reason, a survey rarely makes sense for an executor. Commissioning one would surface issues you had no knowledge of and would then have to disclose, when you were under no duty to go looking for them in the first place. Here the survey is squarely the buyer's job. Our guide on mistakes to avoid when selling a probate flat covers the wider picture.
What Happens If the Information Is Wrong or Missing
Getting disclosure wrong can play out in a few ways, and they get steadily more painful. At the mild end is delay, where an inconsistency or a problem that surfaces late holds the sale up while the buyer's solicitor digs into it. Worse is a buyer who loses confidence and walks away, after both sides have already spent money. The serious end is a misrepresentation claim after completion, where a buyer who relied on a false answer comes back for compensation, or in the rarest cases asks for the sale to be unwound.
How real is that last risk? In a high-profile 2025 High Court case, the buyers of a £32.5 million London house were allowed to reverse the purchase after the seller answered that he was not aware of any vermin problem, when he had in fact paid specialists to treat a moth infestation the year before. The court found this was a fraudulent misrepresentation in his replies to pre-contract enquiries and ordered the sale rescinded, with the buyers' money returned. It was a freehold house rather than a flat, but the principle is identical: the answers you give to enquiries are statements the buyer relies on, and a dishonest one can be undone long after the keys have changed hands.
The thread running through all ten mistakes is the same. Be upfront, be accurate and get your documents ready early so you have time to answer properly. Where an issue is genuinely difficult to judge, a complaint that may or may not be a "dispute", a clash that feels personal, an alteration you are unsure needed consent, do not decide it alone on the form. Set out the facts and run it past your solicitor; that is what they are there for, and it is far cheaper than getting it wrong.
Further Reading
Two related guides go further: the conveyancing pitfalls that derail leasehold sales and what the leasehold information form actually asks you to declare.
Frequently Asked Questions
There is no single list, but the rule of thumb is that you must answer the buyer's enquiries honestly and not mislead them. The pre-contract forms, the TA6 and the leasehold TA7, ask about disputes, alterations, building works, the lease terms, the service charge and more, and your answers are statements the buyer can rely on. On the listing itself, "material information" (anything that would affect a typical buyer's decision) has to be shown, and that duty sits with the estate agent. The safest approach is to give the agent and your solicitor everything you know and let them judge what goes where.
The TA7 Leasehold Information Form is the standard companion to the TA6 for leasehold sales, and almost every buyer's solicitor will expect it. It is not legally compulsory, but in practice refusing to complete it would stall the sale and make a buyer wary. It asks specifically about the lease, the service charge, ground rent, the managing agent and any consents, so it is also where much of your leasehold disclosure happens. Our guide to the TA7 form walks through what it covers.
An honest mistake is not the same as a dishonest answer. If you realise you have got something wrong, tell your solicitor and correct it as soon as you can, ideally before exchange; a prompt correction usually causes no lasting harm. The problem arises when an answer was wrong and you knew it, or you guessed when you should have checked. That is where a buyer can later argue they were misled. If you are not certain of an answer, say so honestly rather than putting down a guess.
Unfortunately, they can. A buyer who relied on a false reply to an enquiry can bring a misrepresentation claim after completion, seeking compensation or, in serious cases, the reversal of the sale. In McMeekin v Long (2003) the sellers answered "no" when the property information form asked about disputes with neighbours, and even described the neighbours as friendly, when there was in fact a running dispute over parking and access. The buyers, who said they would not have bought had they known, were found to be the victims of a fraudulent misrepresentation and were awarded damages. That was a house, but the same law applies to the leasehold answers you give on the TA7: a wrong reply about the service charge, a dispute or an alteration can found a claim just as readily. Claims like this are not everyday events, but the route exists, which is why an honest answer at the time is worth far more than a tidy-looking one. This is general information rather than legal advice; a solicitor can tell you how it applies to your sale.
Give the current annual figure and mention any recent or expected rise that you know about. A buyer is doing their sums on what the flat costs to run, so quoting an out-of-date lower figure, or staying quiet about an increase already announced, is misleading even if the number you wrote was once accurate. The accounts in the management pack will show the real picture anyway, so an understated figure tends to surface and cost you the buyer's trust. An honest higher charge is far easier to sell than a figure that unravels.
If you are aware of proposed works, declare them. The TA7 asks what you know about, and "proposed but not yet confirmed" is still something you are aware of. A Section 20 consultation that has started, or a surveyor's report flagging a major repair, both point to a bill the new owner may inherit, and that is highly material to a buyer. Telling them lets the cost be factored into the offer rather than detonating mid-sale; saying nothing about a bill you knew was coming is a clear misrepresentation.
This is a genuinely grey area. The TA6 asks about disputes and complaints relating to the property or a neighbouring one, which points at things that affect the flat or its enjoyment, rather than a purely personal falling-out the next owner is unlikely to inherit. The trouble is that the line is not always obvious, and a dispute that has been put in writing is on record either way. Rather than deciding it yourself by leaving the box blank, set out what happened, explain why you think it may not affect the buyer and let your solicitor advise on how to answer. That protects you and keeps the reply honest.
If the lease required consent for work you have done and you never got it, dealing with it before you sell saves a lot of grief. The buyer's solicitor will ask about alterations, the surveyor may notice them, and an unconsented change can hold the sale up while it is resolved. The two routes are retrospective consent from the freeholder, which takes time and money, or indemnity insurance, which is quicker but offers narrower cover and is not always accepted for structural work. Talk to your solicitor early, and see our guide on the Licence to Alter.
If it happened, yes. A leak from a neighbouring flat is the sort of thing only you know about, and the TA6 asks about exactly this kind of issue. Describe what happened, whether it was a one-off or recurring, and what was done to fix it. A leak that was sorted and documented reassures a buyer far more than the same stain discovered after completion with no explanation, which is where a misrepresentation claim can start. Keep any plumber's invoice or insurance correspondence to hand.
The restrictions themselves live in the lease, so a buyer's solicitor will find a short-let ban, a subletting consent requirement or a no-pets clause. What you should flag is anything that matters to this buyer, such as a subletting clause for someone who plans to let, and crucially, whether you have complied. If you have been letting short-term against the lease or sublet without consent, that breach is not in the management pack but the TA7 asks about it, and a buyer is owed an honest answer. Our guide on renting out your leasehold flat covers how these clauses work.