What paperwork should I keep about my house?
The file a buyer's solicitor will ask for years from now — certificates, guarantees, consents and service records — and why assembling it as you go costs nothing and reconstructing it costs a sale.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 1 hr
- Read
- 4 min
Short answer
One file for the property, kept permanently and handed on when you sell. In it: the deeds pack and title information, every building regulations and electrical certificate, window and boiler paperwork, planning decisions and lawful development certificates, guarantees for damp, roofing and timber work, service records, and a note of what is where in the house. Add to it the day work finishes, not at sale.
Almost every delay in a house sale is a missing document about work that was done years earlier. The certificate existed at the time; nobody put it anywhere. Reconstructing it later means chasing a contractor who has retired, applying for a regularisation certificate, or buying an indemnity policy, and it happens at the worst possible moment. A single file, added to as work happens, prevents all of it.
Step by step
- Start the file with what you got at purchase.The title information document and plan, the transfer, the searches, the survey, any indemnity policies, the seller's property information form and fittings list, and the completion statement. Everything the conveyancer sent goes in.
- Keep every building regulations completion certificate.Extensions, loft conversions, structural alterations, new windows, replacement boilers, new circuits, drainage work, and a garage conversion. This is the category most often missing and most often asked for, and its absence can stop a sale.
- Keep the electrical paperwork.Electrical installation certificates and minor works certificates for any work, plus the most recent condition report. Certified work under a competent person scheme produces a certificate that also serves as the building regulations notification.
- Keep gas and boiler documents together.The Gas Safe registered installer's commissioning and building regulations notification for a boiler, the manufacturer's guarantee, and the annual service record, which most guarantees depend on. Landlords must additionally keep gas safety records.
- Keep window and door paperwork.Replacement windows and external doors need building regulations compliance, evidenced either by a competent person scheme certificate or by a building control certificate. Buyers' solicitors ask for this routinely.
- Keep planning decisions and any lawful development certificate.Decision notices, approved drawings, discharge of conditions, and any lawful development certificate confirming that permission was not required. Listed building and conservation area consents belong here too.
- Keep guarantees for specialist work, with the transferability terms.Damp proofing, timber treatment, structural repair, roofing, underpinning, cavity wall insulation, flat roofs. Read whether the guarantee transfers to a buyer and whether it is insurance-backed, because an untransferable guarantee from a dissolved company is worth nothing.
- Keep party wall awards and any neighbour agreements.Party wall awards — an England and Wales instrument, with no direct equivalent in Scotland or Northern Ireland — rights of way, shared drain agreements, boundary agreements and anything in writing with a neighbour about a fence, a tree or access. These resurface at sale and memory is not evidence.
- Record the practical knowledge of the house too.Where the stopcock, consumer unit, gas meter and isolation valves are, which paint was used in which room, filter and part numbers, the septic tank or treatment plant arrangements, and who has serviced what. Enormously useful to you and a genuine gift to a buyer.
- File the paperwork on the day the work is signed off.Not at sale. Chasing a certificate from a contractor eight years later is the specific problem this file exists to prevent.
Checklist
- Title information document, plan and conveyancing file from purchase
- Building regulations completion certificates for all work
- Electrical installation and minor works certificates, and the latest condition report
- Boiler commissioning, guarantee and annual service records
- Window and external door compliance certificates
- Planning decision notices, approved drawings and lawful development certificates
- Guarantees for damp, timber, roofing and structural work, with transfer terms
- Party wall awards and any written neighbour agreements
- Insurance schedules and any claim history for the property
- A written note of stopcock, consumer unit, meter and valve locations
- Paint colours, product references and filter or part numbers
- Drainage, septic tank or treatment plant records where applicable
Questions people ask
What happens if a certificate is missing when I sell?
The buyer's solicitor will usually require either a retrospective regularisation certificate from building control, which means opening up and inspecting work, or an indemnity policy, which covers the risk of enforcement but does not make the work compliant. Both cost money and time, and both are avoidable.
How long should I keep this?
Permanently, and it goes to the buyer when you sell. Property paperwork is the clearest example of the permanent tier — a certificate from twenty years ago is still the document being asked for.
Do guarantees transfer to a new owner?
Some do and some do not, and it is stated in the guarantee. Insurance-backed guarantees are far more valuable because they survive the contractor going out of business, which over a twenty-year guarantee is a real possibility.
Is a paper file or a scanned one better?
Both. Scan everything for findability and backup, and keep the original certificates, which are the documents a solicitor will want to see. This is a category where the original is worth retaining.