Trade and representative bodies, including The Conveyancing Association, launch sixth iteration of the BASPI

Trade and representative bodies representing the legal, surveying, estate agency and property management sectors, including The Conveyancing Association, have today (31^st March 2025) launched the sixth iteration of the BASPI – the Buyer’s and Seller’s Property Information dataset.

The BASPI, developed by the upfront information working group of the Home Buying and Selling Council (HBSC), is a ‘single source of truth’ dataset, designed to include all the information required on a property when it is put on the market for sale.

Split into two parts, Part A covers the disclosure of material information required by Regulations, while Part B includes additional information required for the legal process. Information provided in the BASPI allows the seller to ensure their property is both ‘Market Ready’ and ‘Sale Ready’.

Part A asks for information regarding the property to be sold, disputes and complaints, alterations and changes, notices, specialist issues, fixtures and fittings, utilities and services, insurance, boundaries, rights and informal arrangements, and any other issues affecting the property.

Part B covers legal ownership, legal boundaries, services crossing other property, energy, guarantees, warranties and indemnity insurances, occupiers, and completion and moving.

This new version of the BASPI introduces some tweaks to existing questions and new ones focused on electric charging points, flat roofs on properties, energy-efficiency retrofitting activity, and further information regarding any planning permissions and any heating system installations.

Those organisations involved in the BASPI have committed to continue working with PropTech companies in order to help produce the output from the BASPI schema, which identifies the material information for the consumer, and to provide them with details on where they should go for advice, depending on the nature of the issues raised.

The new version of the BASPI can be downloaded from the CA website at: https://www.conveyancingassociation.org.uk/downloads/

Beth Rudolf, Director of Delivery at the Conveyancing Association, commented:

“Every year we conduct a full review and industry consultation to ensure the BASPI is up to date and to reflect any changes in law, and ongoing updates that may be required. This is now the sixth iteration of the dataset and there are some minor tweaks to existing questions, as well as a small number of new ones.

“The Government’s recent commitment to digitalise the home buying and selling process further is a positive next step. We hope the PropTech sector will then be able to complete much more of the BASPI using the digitalised authority data.  This will mean that they can produce, as the output of the BAPSI, the Material Information needed by estate agents to comply with the law and direct potential buyers to the appropriate advisers relevant to the Material Information.

“While this could be the conveyancer for matters of a legal nature, surveyors for condition, or the financial adviser, some issues will point the potential buyer to specialist advisers such as the International Property Flood Resilience Association or the Environment Agency.

“We hope this means conveyancers will be reassured their client has no expectation they will receive advice from them on matters for which they do not have the expertise and, as a result, reduce the scope creep firms have been trying to deal with.

“The DPMSG is working with all sectors to identify what each has the expertise to advise on.  This should make life easier for conveyancing firms as they will only be advising on the legal aspects revealed by the Title and the search results, and on how to protect the reliance on the information given by the seller during the transaction.”