TA6 forms 'will not change overnight', Society assures conveyancers

Changes to the TA6 process for gathering property information will not happen overnight, the vice-president of the Law Society has assured conveyancers under pressure to complete transactions ahead of imminent changes to stamp duty land tax (SDLT) thresholds.

Last year the Society released a TA6 property information form updated to reflect National Trading Standards guidance on material information, but paused compulsory adoption after controversy erupted over the guidance. Following an extensive consultation process that attracted over 1,200 participants, the Society yesterday unveiled a ‘two-form’ approach to the property information process.

Discussing the TA6 update in a session for National Conveyancing Week yesterday afternoon, Society vice-president Mark Evans - who was a high street conveyancer for nearly three decades - acknowledged the announcement was made during a stressful time for practitioners, who are currently rushing to complete transactions before 1 April. As of 1 April, the nil-rate SDLT threshold will be reduced from £250,000 to £125,000 – effectively meaning more buyers paying thousands of pounds more in tax.

Evans said the consultation findings and way forward were presented to the Law Society Council on Wednesday. A decision was made at the council meeting and the Society was in a position to make everything public.

The TA6 forms will not change overnight, Evans repeatedly stressed. Noting that the consultation ended last autumn, Evans said: ‘We’re saying “Here are the results, digest them, look at them. We have a plan now as to the way forward”… I appreciate this is a stressful time but we would have been criticised for saying nothing.’

On the two-form approach, Evans said the consultation responses revealed a ‘divergence of opinion’. Some respondents liked the fourth edition of the TA6 form while some were comfortable with the material information element added to the fifth edition. The Society concluded that the best way forward was to keep the TA6 form purely on property matters and have a separate form for material information for conveyancers wanting to embrace material information.

The sixth edition of TA6 will be ‘similar in style but not identical’ to the fourth edition, Evans said. The new forms will be user tested this summer ‘to see what works, what’s not working and is it simple’. 

The implementation period for the new forms will begin in October. The sixth edition of TA6 will become mandatory for members of the Law Society's Conveyancing Quality Scheme in March 2026.