Countries · United Kingdom
What to check in the United Kingdom before you sign.
An agreement here is not a commitment: until contracts are exchanged either side can walk away for no reason and at no cost, and that is exactly what wrecks a quarter to a third of all sales.
What costs the most money in the United Kingdom
In England and Wales nothing is legally binding until the exchange of contracts. Agree a price and you can still be outbid (gazumping), with nobody refunding the valuation, survey and legal fees you have already paid. Industry figures for 2025 put failed sales at 24 to 30 percent across the year, and higher in some quarters. Scotland does not have this problem in the same form; there acceptance binds far earlier.
Source: HomeOwners Alliance und Erhebungen zur Abbruchquote im Verkauf, 2025
Purchase costs
0 to 12% stamp duty plus roughly £1,100 to £4,200 in fixed costs
of the purchase price, on top of the price in the listing.
- Stamp duty, England and Northern Ireland, by purchase price0, 2, 5, 10 oder 12 %
- Stamp duty for first-time buyersbis 300.000 Pfund keine
- Stamp duty, surcharge from the second home5 Prozentpunkte
- Solicitor for the conveyancing500 bis 1.150 Pfund
- Disbursements and searches250 bis 450 Pfund
- Land Registry fee, official scale45 bis 1.105 Pfund, elektronisch 20 bis 500
- Survey, levels 1 to 3300 bis 1.500 Pfund
- Estate agent commissionzahlt der Verkäufer
Source: Stamp duty at the HM Revenue and Customs rates for England and Northern Ireland, Land Registry fees on HM Land Registry's official Scale 1, the remaining items from the HomeOwners Alliance cost overview for 2026. Two things work differently here than in Germany or Austria, and both change the sum: the largest item is not the commission but the tax, and it jumps in steps instead of rising smoothly. And the estate agent commission is paid by the seller, not the buyer. That is why there is no plain percentage range here: apart from the tax, almost every item is a fixed amount, and its share falls as the purchase price rises. Scotland and Wales have their own taxes with their own steps.
The trap for tenants
Damp is not the exception in the rental market, it is the rule in one home in ten: 10 percent of privately rented homes have a damp problem, against 4 percent of owner occupied homes. That is two and a half times as often. Across the country, four million homes, 15 percent of the stock, failed the Decent Homes Standard in 2024. At a viewing you see freshly painted walls, not the cause behind them.
Energy and the duty to renovate
An EPC (bands A to G) is required for both sale and letting, and the band must appear in the listing itself. In the private rented sector you may only let from band E upwards: at F or G the fine runs to £5,000 per property, and the landlord must spend up to £3,500 of their own money on improvements before an exemption can be entered on the national register. Owner-occupiers face no duty to renovate.
Certificate validity: 10 years
What to watch for in the United Kingdom in particular
For years, new-build homes were sold as leasehold with a clause that doubled the ground rent at fixed intervals. What sounded like a small annual fee in the sales conversation was a curve in the title deed. Those affected were stuck in houses they could neither sell nor mortgage, and anyone who fell behind with the ground rent risked losing the lease. The Competition and Markets Authority has been investigating this since 2019 and, by its own account, has freed more than 21,000 households from problematic leasehold clauses, most recently in March 2024, when eight freeholders removed the doubling from existing contracts. Whether leasehold or freehold applies is stated in the title deed, not in the listing.
Official maps in the United Kingdom
4 map layers lie directly over your property.
Not as an average for the district, but at your exact address, with a legend and a visible source. Every layer can be switched on separately.
Check it yourself
The official bodies in the United Kingdom.
Scan my Home checks against these sources. You can call up every one of them yourself, and that is exactly the point: a figure you cannot verify is not a figure, it is a claim.
Ownership & charges
Ownership, charges, boundaries
Market & transactions
Sale prices actually achieved
Energy
EPC Register (England & Wales)
Registered energy certificate
Building & zoning
Local Planning Authority / Planning Portal
Zoning, permits
The market in the United Kingdom
Around 98,700 homes change hands in a single month, plus 10,300 commercial properties. Between April and June 2026 there were 282,010 residential completions in three months. The tax authority counts completions and publishes no monetary volume.
Source: HM Revenue and Customs, Monthly property transactions, Stand Juni 2026, veröffentlicht am 31.07.2026
A real dossier from this country
See what the analysis found on an actual listing in the United Kingdom — every figure with its source.
Open the example dossierOther countries