The Journal

How long to keep bank statements, bills and receipts in the UK

Almost every retention list online is built on a seven-year figure that belongs to no UK rule about household papers. The periods that do exist are reverse-engineered from named deadlines: HMRC's 22 months, a limitation clock that is six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and five in Scotland, and a twenty-year window on an estate. This piece gives each period with the statute or guidance that sets it, and shows which documents can simply be re-ordered.

Nobody keeps paperwork for tidiness

There is no statutory period for which a private individual must keep a bank statement. Nothing in UK law sets one, and the seven-year figure everyone repeats is not describing anything in the statute book. Every period worth observing is reverse-engineered from a deadline sitting somewhere else: a return that can still be checked, a claim that can still be brought, a question a buyer's solicitor will ask, an estate that will one day be valued.

That makes the headline answer short. For most people it is twenty-two months. HMRC's guidance on keeping your pay and tax records says to keep your records for at least 22 months after the end of the tax year the return is for, and works the example: a 2024 to 2025 return sent online by 31 January 2026 means records kept until at least the end of January 2027. For the self-employed and landlords the business version of the same guidance gives five years after the 31 January submission deadline: a 2022 to 2023 return filed by 31 January 2024 runs to the end of January 2029.

Everything else is exceptions, and each is a clock with a named deadline at the end of it.

Four clocks, and none of them is a general seven-year rule

Household paper answers to four deadlines that have nothing to do with one another. The tax clock runs from the filing of a return. The claims clock runs from a breach of contract: six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, five in Scotland. The conveyancing clock runs for as long as you own the house and falls due at sale. The estate clock is the longest, and it lands on ordinary people acting as executors: gov.uk's guidance on valuing an estate says HMRC can ask to see your records up to 20 years after Inheritance Tax is paid.

None of those periods is seven years. Searching HMRC, gov.uk and legislation.gov.uk, I can find no UK rule that sets seven years for a household's records. That is a statement about an absence rather than a citation, but the absence is the point.

Two real sevens exist, and naming them beats shrugging at folklore. One is American and is genuinely a retention rule: the Internal Revenue Service's table of record-keeping periods says to keep records for seven years if you file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or a bad debt deduction. The other is British but is a tax rule first — gov.uk's seven-year rule, under which no tax is due on a gift if you live for seven years after giving it. That one does produce a real instruction to keep papers, because the same page tells you to record what you gave, to whom, what it was worth and when, for whoever has to work out the gifts of your last seven years. Seven is right for gifts and for nothing else in the house.

What HMRC asks of a person, and the longer window if the return was late or is under enquiry

The 22 months has a statute behind it, and the two agree exactly. Section 12B of the Taxes Management Act 1970 requires records to be preserved until the end of what it calls the relevant day: for a person not carrying on a business, the first anniversary of the 31 January next following the year of assessment; for a person carrying on a trade, profession or business, the fifth anniversary of that date. Those are the 22 months and the five years, in the statute's own language.

Filing late moves the date: gov.uk tells a late individual filer to keep records for at least 15 months after sending the return, and gives the self-employed the same 15 months where the return is more than four years late.

The enquiry extension is real, but not where you would look for it. The current gov.uk page says only that HMRC may check your records, and sets no extended period for an open enquiry. The extension is in section 12B itself, which runs the duty on to the day the officer's enquiries are completed. Section 9A of the same Act limits when an enquiry can begin at all: an officer has up to the end of the period of twelve months after the day on which a return delivered on time was delivered.

Then the reason a cautious person keeps more than 22 months: the duty to keep records expires long before the power to assess. Section 34 is headed "Ordinary time limit of 4 years" and lets an assessment be made not more than four years after the end of the year of assessment it relates to. Section 36 allows six years where a loss of tax was brought about carelessly, and twenty years where it was brought about deliberately or where the taxpayer failed to notify chargeability. Nothing obliges you to hold paper for twenty years. It is simply that inside those windows your position is better with the records than without.

Six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, five in Scotland, and what actually starts the clock

Section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980 is one sentence: an action founded on simple contract shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued. It is extent-marked England and Wales. Northern Ireland reaches the same six years by its own instrument, Article 4 of the Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, also running from accrual. Scotland is five, under section 6 of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, and the difference is not only the number. Section 5 says an action shall not be brought; section 6 says the obligation shall be extinguished. In England and Wales the right survives and the remedy is barred; in Scotland the obligation is gone.

Scotland's clock starts elsewhere too. Section 6(3) runs it from what the 1973 Act calls the appropriate date, which for an ordinary obligation is the date the obligation became enforceable, and where the claim is for damages section 11 puts that date at the day the loss occurred. Since 1 June 2022 section 11 has carried the awareness test that section 5 of the Prescription (Scotland) Act 2018 wrote into it: where the creditor was not aware, and could not with reasonable diligence have been aware, of the facts the section lists, the clock instead starts on the date they first became, or could with reasonable diligence have become, so aware.

The familiar warning that a retention table built on purchase dates is therefore wrong is half right, and wrong in the direction it is usually given. In the commonest household case, goods that were not of satisfactory quality, the breach happens at supply. Section 9(1) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 treats every contract to supply goods as including a term that their quality is satisfactory, and a term about what is handed over is broken on the day it is handed over. Section 19(14) of the same Act gets pressed into this argument and does not belong to it: it is a presumption, not a clock. For the purposes of the Act's own repair, replacement, price-reduction and final-rejection remedies it treats goods that do not conform within six months of delivery as not having conformed on the day of delivery, which is a reversed burden of proof rather than a rule about when a cause of action accrues, and section 19(15) disapplies even that where it is established that the goods did conform on that day, or where the presumption is incompatible with the nature of the goods or of the failure.

So filing receipts by purchase date is approximately right for faulty goods. Where it fails, it fails by being too short. A contract made by deed is a specialty and runs for twelve years under section 8 of the Limitation Act; deliberate concealment postpones the start altogether under section 32, which holds the clock until the claimant discovered the concealment or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it; and in Scotland obligations relating to land are taken out of the five-year prescription by paragraph 2(e) of Schedule 1 to the 1973 Act, save for the periodical payments that paragraph keeps in, and sit instead under the twenty-year prescription in section 7. Five is the wrong figure for Scottish conveyancing paper. And check the date on any account of Scots prescription you read: the remainder of the Prescription (Scotland) Act 2018 came into force on 28 February 2025.

The documents you think cannot be replaced, and which of them actually can

Birth, marriage and death certificates are what people buy a fireproof box for, and they are among the easiest documents to replace. Two Acts do the work, and it is worth keeping them apart. For births and deaths it is section 30(2) of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, under which any person shall be entitled to search the indexes and to have a certified copy of any entry. Marriages sit outside that Act entirely; the entitlement there is section 65(2) of the Marriage Act 1949, in the form substituted on 4 May 2021, under which a person is entitled to search the indexes of entries in the marriage register and to obtain a certified copy from the Registrar General. Neither provision asks who you are to the person named on the certificate, and neither does the order form: the General Register Office wants your own name and address, a contact email address, card details and the details of the event, plus the index reference if you have it.

The prices, as at September 2026, are the reason to stop treating these as irreplaceable: £12.50 online for a full certificate with the index reference and £16.00 without, £3.00 for a digital image of the entry and £8.00 for a PDF, with priority at £38.50 and £42.00. Standard certificates are despatched on the fourth working day from receipt of order where the index reference is quoted and on the fifteenth where it is not, which is the second reason to find it first. In Scotland, mygov.scot points you to ScotlandsPeople, at £12 for the first certificate and £10 for each additional copy and usually dispatched within 15 working days, or to your local council, where the cost depends on the council — date those figures, because National Records of Scotland is consulting on revising the fees for ordering certificate extracts and searching ScotlandsPeople records so that they better reflect the true cost of delivering the services, and that consultation closes on 4 October 2026.

Title deeds are the strongest case. HM Land Registry states that it does not store original paper deeds and that copies of deeds cannot be used to prove ownership: the proof is the register. Section 58 of the Land Registration Act 2002 deems the legal estate vested in the person registered as proprietor, and section 67 makes an official copy admissible in evidence to the same extent as the original. An official copy costs £11 by post; the £7 download is information, not proof. The gap there is the delivery channel rather than the document's standing — a conveyancer with a Land Registry account gets the official copy for £7. HM Land Registry's own blog still recommended in 2018 that owners keep the original deeds, not as proof but for what the register omits, such as legal boundaries and past ownership.

The short never-destroy list that survives the test

Two things survive the test. The first is the original will. The guidance for a postal probate application is flat: you must submit the original will and the official death certificate, and photocopies will not be accepted. A will that is genuinely lost has a separate and harder route — form PA13, sent in with a copy of the lost will if you have one, and an affidavit confirming what was in it.

The second is a certificate of registration or naturalisation as a British citizen, particularly one issued before October 1986: gov.uk states that you cannot get a replacement from UKVI if you became a British citizen before that date, and sends those applicants to The National Archives for a certified copy of the record instead, which is not a new certificate. Where UKVI can replace one it costs £456. Home Office guidance calls the certificate legal evidence of the acquisition of British citizenship, to be carefully preserved, and adds a detail worth knowing before you tidy: it must not be unofficially altered or laminated, because in that condition HM Passport Office will not accept it as evidence of citizenship.

Beyond those two the question is form rather than originality, and HMRC's answer is permissive: its guidance says there are no rules on how you must keep records, which can be on paper, digitally or inside a software package. Property is the exception: what matters there is not that your copy is old but that it is official.

What a buyer's solicitor in England and Wales will ask you for, for as long as you own the house

The best evidence of what to keep for a house is not advice about houses; it is the form a seller has to fill in. The Law Society's TA6 Property Information Form, sixth edition, dated 2025, has been compulsory for firms in the Law Society's Conveyancing Quality Scheme since 30 March 2026. Take the jurisdiction seriously here: the Law Society says the TA6 is used for most standard residential transactions in England and Wales, and its explanatory notes add that the wiring regulations relate to England and Wales and that building regulations have been different in the two countries since 31 July 2014. Nothing in this section is a Scottish or Northern Irish answer.

Those notes tell sellers to give their solicitor any documents or other papers which relate to the questions in the form, and to say so if any are lost or missing. Buyers, the notes add, can rely on the information the seller gives, and misleading information may let them claim compensation after completion.

The notes list what a seller may need: utility bills, information about facilities and services, planning permissions and building control consents, a copy of the Land Registry title documents, party wall notices and any other notices or consents, competent person certificates, any guarantees and warranties, and information about any works you have carried out and arrangements for parking. Section 5 covers alterations, and the answer to it is a paper trail: planning permission, generally needed where the works change the external appearance of a building, building regulations approval, or a competent person certificate from a tradesperson entitled to self-certify that work instead. Section 6 sends sellers back through the conveyancing pack from when they bought, the receipts and certificates for work such as new windows, damp proofing or a boiler installation, and the homeowner's logbook if there was one. Section 11 is services, and the dates there are the ones that matter: from 1 January 2005 all electrical installation work has had to follow building regulations, and a gas-fired boiler or solid fuel appliance installed on or after 1 April 2005 needed a Building Control Completion Certificate or the installer's own Building Regulations Compliance Certificate.

Ten years understates all that: the electrical question alone reaches back twenty-one years, and the guarantees question turns on whether a warranty is still in force rather than on how old the paper is. The genuine ten-year figure sits elsewhere and is usually reported wrongly. Section 36(4) of the Building Act 1984 now provides that a section 36 notice shall not be given after the expiration of ten years from the date of the completion of the work in question — a replacement for the twelve months the subsection carried as enacted, substituted by the Building Safety Act 2022 and in force in England from 1 October 2023 and in Wales from 1 July 2026. Those dates, like the Act they sit in, reach no further than England and Wales. The council's power to enforce expires. The buyer's solicitor's question does not.

A retention table on one page, and what to do with the box you already have

Bank statements: 22 months from the end of the tax year, or five years after the 31 January deadline if you are self-employed or a landlord, under section 12B of the Taxes Management Act 1970. Do not keep them as an archive of the bank's own data. Regulation 40 of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 makes a bank keep its records for five years from the end of the business relationship, and while it holds your data you can ask for a copy: gov.uk's data protection guidance says an organisation must give you one as soon as possible and within one month, usually free, though it can take a further two months where the request is complex or you have made several.

Utility bills: twelve months. Ofgem's back billing rules say you do not have to pay for energy you used more than 12 months ago where you have not been billed accurately for it before. The page lists three such situations, as bare bullets under one "if": you have not had an accurate bill for it before, you have not been told what you needed to pay through a statement of account, or your Direct Debit was previously set too low to cover what you needed to pay. Ofgem states no conjunction between them, and a household that pays on receipt of a bill rather than by Direct Debit is still within the protection; the rules apply to households and microbusinesses alike. The protection goes if you acted unreasonably, by stopping the supplier billing you accurately or blocking access to the meter, ignoring requests for payment, or stealing electricity or gas. Keeping older energy bills is a decision about something else: a tax claim, a deposit dispute, proof of address.

Receipts for goods: six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, five in Scotland, from the breach rather than the purchase, with the purchase date a floor and not a ceiling. Estate papers, if you are an executor: twenty years from the payment of Inheritance Tax. Gift records: seven. House papers: the life of the ownership, against the England and Wales checklist above.

Which leaves the box. Sorting it by year is the wrong axis, because none of these clocks starts on 1 January. Sort it by clock: tax years in one place, the house in another, the estate of anyone whose affairs you are administering in a third, everything with no clock attached in the recycling.

Sources

An individual not in business should keep records for at least 22 months after the end of the tax year the return is for — worked example: a 2024 to 2025 return sent online by 31 January 2026, records kept until at least the end of January 2027 — and for at least 15 months after sending a late return. The page sets out no extended retention period for an open enquiry; it says only that HMRC may check your records. — GOV.UK, "Keeping your pay and tax records: How long to keep your records" (HM Revenue & Customs), accessed 2026
"There are no rules on how you must keep records. You can keep them on paper, digitally or as part of a software program (like book-keeping software)." This wording is on the Overview page of the guide, not on the retention page. — GOV.UK, "Keeping your pay and tax records: Overview" (HM Revenue & Customs), accessed 2026
"You must keep your records for at least 5 years after the 31 January submission deadline of the relevant tax year" — worked example: "If you sent your 2022 to 2023 tax return online by 31 January 2024, you must keep your records until at least the end of January 2029." A return sent more than 4 years after the deadline requires records to be kept for 15 months after sending it. — GOV.UK, "Business records if you're self-employed: How long to keep your records" (HM Revenue & Customs), accessed 2026
The statutory duty behind the 22 months and the five years: records must be preserved until the end of "the relevant day", which under s.12B(2) is "the first anniversary of the 31st January next following the year of assessment" for a person not in business and "the fifth anniversary of the 31st January next following the year of assessment" for a trade, profession or business. Section 12B(1)(b) extends the duty where enquiries are made into the return, to the day on which, by virtue of s.28A(1B) or s.28B(1B), those enquiries are completed. This page carries s.12B only; ss.9A, 34 and 36 are cited separately below. — Taxes Management Act 1970, s.12B, 1970
The window in which an enquiry can be opened at all: where the return was delivered on or before the filing date, notice of enquiry may be given "up to the end of the period of twelve months after the day on which the return was delivered" (s.9A(2)(a)). — Taxes Management Act 1970, s.9A, 1970
The heading is "Ordinary time limit of 4 years", in numerals, and s.34(1) allows an assessment to income tax or capital gains tax to be made "at any time not more than 4 years after the end of the year of assessment to which it relates". — Taxes Management Act 1970, s.34, 1970
Six years and twenty years: s.36(1) allows an assessment in a case involving a loss of tax "brought about carelessly by the person" to be made "at any time not more than 6 years after the end of the year of assessment to which it relates"; s.36(1A) gives 20 years where the loss was brought about deliberately or is attributable to a failure to comply with the obligation to notify chargeability. Section heading: "Loss of tax brought about carelessly or deliberately etc". — Taxes Management Act 1970, s.36, 1970
"HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) can ask to see your records up to 20 years after Inheritance Tax is paid." The source of the twenty-year figure for an executor's papers, and the reason the table line is conditional on Inheritance Tax having been paid. — GOV.UK, "How to value an estate for Inheritance Tax and report its value: Records", accessed 2026
"Keep records for 7 years if you file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction." One of the two real sevens: an American retention rule, not a UK one. — Internal Revenue Service, "How long should I keep records?", accessed 2026
"No tax is due on any gifts you give if you live for 7 years after giving them." The same page tells the giver to keep a record of what you gave and who you gave it to, the value of the gift and when you gave it, because the person dealing with the estate has to work out the gifts of the last seven years. The other real seven, and a tax rule before it is a retention rule. — GOV.UK, "Inheritance Tax: rules on giving gifts", accessed 2026
"An action founded on simple contract shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued" — extent marked E+W on the page, which is why Northern Ireland is cited to its own instrument. The page carries s.5 only. — Limitation Act 1980, s.5, 1980
"An action upon a specialty shall not be brought after the expiration of twelve years from the date on which the cause of action accrued." Extent marked E+W. This is the twelve years for a contract made by deed. — Limitation Act 1980, s.8, 1980
Postponement for fraud, deliberate concealment or mistake: "the period of limitation shall not begin to run until the plaintiff has discovered the fraud, concealment or mistake (as the case may be) or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it". — Limitation Act 1980, s.32, 1980
Northern Ireland reaches the same six years by its own instrument: "Subject to Articles 5, 7 and 9, the following actions may not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued", the list including an action founded on simple contract. The Limitation Act 1980 is extent-marked England and Wales and cannot carry this figure. — Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, Article 4, 1989
Scotland's five-year prescription extinguishes the obligation rather than barring the action: after five years without a relevant claim or acknowledgement, "then as from the expiration of that period the obligation shall be extinguished". Section 6(3) defines "the appropriate date" as the date specified in Schedule 2 for the obligations listed there and, for any other obligation, the date when the obligation became enforceable. This page carries s.6 only; Schedule 1, s.7 and s.11 are cited separately. — Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, s.6, 1973
The twenty-year prescription that catches what the five-year one excludes: "An obligation to which this section applies is extinguished on the expiry of the continuous period of 20 years after the date on which the obligation became enforceable." — Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, s.7, 1973
Schedule 1 brings contract within the five-year prescription at paragraph 1(g) — "any obligation arising from, or by reason of any breach of, a contract or promise, not being an obligation falling within any other provision of this paragraph" — and takes land back out at paragraph 2(e): "except as provided in paragraph 1(a), (ab), (ac) and (h) of this Schedule, to any obligation relating to land (including an obligation to recognise a servitude)". The paragraph 1 exceptions are periodical payments such as rent, which is why the article says "save for the periodical payments that paragraph keeps in". — Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, Schedule 1, 1973
Where the Scottish claim is for damages, s.11(1) provides that "any obligation to pay damages (whatever the source of the obligation) for loss, injury or damage caused by an act or omission shall be regarded for the purposes of section 6 of this Act as having become enforceable on the date when the loss, injury or damage occurred", and s.11(3) substitutes "the date when the creditor first became, or could with reasonable diligence have become, so aware" of the facts listed in s.11(3A) where the creditor was not aware of them earlier. Current heading: "Obligations to pay damages" — the older "obligations to make reparation" wording has been replaced. — Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, s.11, 1973
The amending provision behind the awareness test, headed "Start point of prescriptive period for obligations to pay damages": s.5 of the 2018 Act amends s.11 of the 1973 Act, replacing "act, neglect or default" with "act or omission" and setting the discoverability trigger as awareness that loss or damage has occurred, that it was caused by a person's act or omission, and of the identity of that person. — Prescription (Scotland) Act 2018, s.5, 2018
The commencement dates: "section 5 (start point of prescriptive period for obligations to pay damages) and section 13 (restrictions on contracting out) of the 2018 Act" came into force on 1 June 2022, and "the day appointed for the coming into force of the provisions of the 2018 Act insofar as not already in force is 28 February 2025". This is the date that makes older accounts of Scots prescription unreliable. — Prescription (Scotland) Act 2018 (Commencement, Saving and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2022 (SSI 2022/78), 2022
The term that is broken at supply: "Every contract to supply goods is to be treated as including a term that the quality of the goods is satisfactory." — Consumer Rights Act 2015, s.9, 2015
What s.19(14) actually is, and is not: it opens "For the purposes of subsections (3)(b) and (c) and (4)" — that is, for the Act's own repair, replacement, price-reduction and final-rejection remedies — and then provides that "goods which do not conform to the contract at any time within the period of six months beginning with the day on which the goods were delivered to the consumer must be taken not to have conformed to it on that day". Subsection (15) disapplies it where "it is established that the goods did conform to the contract on that day" or where "its application is incompatible with the nature of the goods or with how they fail to conform to the contract". It is a reversed burden of proof, not a limitation provision. — Consumer Rights Act 2015, s.19, 2015
Fees as published: full certificate £12.50 online with the GRO index reference and £16.00 without (the difference is the £3.50 charged for the GRO to index on the applicant's behalf, which is included in the £16.00, not added to it); digital image £3.00; PDF £8.00; priority £38.50 online with a reference and £42.00 without. "Your certificate(s) will be despatched on the fourth working day from receipt of order, or the fifteenth working day when no GRO reference number is quoted." An online applicant must supply "Your full name and address", "A contact email address", "Valid credit/debit card information" and "Details of the event you are applying for: birth, marriage, civil partnership, death, adoption or overseas record". The service covers marriage and civil partnership records as well as births and deaths. — GOV.UK / General Register Office, "How to order and pay for civil registration records (accessible)", accessed 2026
The statutory entitlement for births and deaths, and the reason there is no relationship test: "Any person shall be entitled to search the said indexes at any time when the General Register Office is open for that purpose, and to have a certified copy of any entry in the said certified copies". The Act covers births and deaths only; it says nothing about marriages. — Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, s.30(2), 1953
The separate entitlement for marriages, which the 1953 Act does not supply: "A person is entitled— (a) to search the indexes of entries in the marriage register and indexes of certified copies of marriage register books at any time when the General Register Office is open for that purpose, and (b) to obtain from the Registrar General a certified copy of an entry made in the marriage register under section 53D(10)(a) or a certified copy of an entry made in a certified copy of a marriage register book." Subsections (1) and (2) were substituted on 4 May 2021 by the Registration of Marriages Regulations 2021. — Marriage Act 1949, s.65, 1949
"A certificate costs £12. Additional copies of the same certificate will cost £10 each" when ordered through ScotlandsPeople, and "It usually takes 15 working days to dispatch an order". The alternative route is the local council: "You can order a certificate from your local council. The cost depends on the council." — mygov.scot, "Order a copy of a birth, death or marriage certificate", accessed 2026
"The consultation sets out proposals to revise fees so that they better reflect the true cost of delivering these services" — revise, not raise — and it closes on 4 October 2026. The services listed include ordering certificate extracts and searching ScotlandsPeople records online and at the ScotlandsPeople Centre, alongside marriage and civil partnership notice and ceremony fees. The page names no statutory instrument. — National Records of Scotland, "Fees consultation launched", 2026
"HM Land Registry does not store original paper deeds." "Copies of deeds cannot be used to prove ownership, for example in a court case." — GOV.UK, "Get information about property and land: Get a copy of the deeds" (HM Land Registry), accessed 2026
The consumer route and its prices: "It costs £7 to get a title register or a title plan" as a download, and "It costs £11 per document" for official copies sent by post. "You can download online copies of the information but you cannot use them as proof of ownership." — GOV.UK, "Search for property information from HM Land Registry", accessed 2026
The £7/£11 gap is a delivery channel, not a difference in status: an official copy of a register or title plan (form OC1) is "£11 per copy" by post and "£7 each per copy" through the portal or Business Gateway, and an official copy of a document (form OC2) is £11 per document by post and £7 through the portal. "Fees vary depending on how you submit your applications to us." — HM Land Registry, "HM Land Registry information services fees", accessed 2026
Section 58(1): "If, on the entry of a person in the register as the proprietor of a legal estate, the legal estate would not otherwise be vested in him, it shall be deemed to be vested in him as a result of the registration." This is why the register, not the deed packet, is the proof of ownership. — Land Registration Act 2002, s.58, 2002
Section 67(1) makes an official copy of the register of title, or of a document kept by the registrar, "admissible in evidence to the same extent as the original". — Land Registration Act 2002, s.67, 2002
"It's a good idea to keep the original deeds though, as they can hold extra information, about legal boundaries or who the previous owner was, for example." — HM Land Registry blog, Frank Ramsay, "Where are my title deeds, and do I need them?", 19 February 2018, 2018
"You will need to submit the original will and the official death certificate. Photocopies of these documents will not be accepted." The same guidance notes that the original "become a public document by law when HM Courts and Tribunals Services (HMCTS) gives you the grant. It will not be returned to you". — GOV.UK / HM Courts & Tribunals Service, "How to apply for probate by post if there is a will" (guidance accompanying form PA1P), accessed 2026
The route when the original will is lost, on the guidance page rather than the form's landing page: send form PA13 in with the probate application "if: you have a copy of the lost will", and "swear an affidavit confirming what was in the will". A probate practitioner does not use the form and must instead "provide an affidavit or statement of truth and exhibits". The landing page at the parent URL carries only the two-sentence form description and none of this. — GOV.UK / HM Courts & Tribunals Service, "How to report a lost will to support a probate application" (form PA13 guidance), accessed 2026
"It costs £456 to replace a lost or damaged certificate." You cannot get a replacement certificate from UKVI if you became a British citizen before October 1986; those applicants are directed to search The National Archives and order a certified copy of the record instead (registration records from 1 January 1949 and naturalisation records from 1 January 1844, both to 30 September 1986). — GOV.UK, "Get a replacement citizenship certificate" (UK Visas and Immigration), accessed 2026
"Your certificate of registration or naturalisation constitutes legal evidence of your acquisition of British citizenship and should be carefully preserved. It must not be unofficially altered or LAMINATED as in this condition it will not be accepted as evidence of citizenship by His Majesty's Passport Office." Read from the text layer of the PDF leaflet. — Home Office, "Some information for British nationals: care of certificates of registration and naturalisation", accessed 2026
"The TA6 (6th edition) form replaced the 4th and 5th editions on 30 March 2026." Firms accredited under the Conveyancing Quality Scheme "must use the TA6 (6th edition) and TA7 (5th edition)" for all new transactions where the solicitor was instructed on or after that date. The jurisdiction marker in the article comes from this page: "It is used for most standard residential transactions in England and Wales." The 6th edition has 15 sections. The page refuses automated fetching with HTTP 403 but returns HTTP 200 and full text (201,445 bytes) to an ordinary browser request, which is how it was read. — The Law Society, "TA6 Property information form (6th edition) (2025)", 2025
The form's published explanatory notes, which are public where the form itself is distributed only through licensed suppliers. Instructions for sellers: "Give your solicitor any documents or other papers which relate to the questions in the TA6 form... If any documents are lost or missing, tell your solicitor", and "Buyers can rely on the information you give in the TA6 form. If you give misleading information, the buyer may be able to claim compensation after completion." The list headed "Documents you may need to complete the TA6 form" runs: utility bills; information about facilities and services; planning permissions and building control consents; a copy of the Land Registry title documents, party wall notices and any other notices or consents; competent person certificates; any guarantees and warranties; "Information about any works you've carried out and arrangements for parking etc." Section 5 is Alterations — "Generally, planning permission is needed if the works change the external appearance of a building", and a competent person scheme "allows people working in the building trade to self-certify certain types of building work instead of getting building regulations approval". Section 6 is Guarantees and warranties, sending sellers to "the original conveyancing pack from your solicitor", "receipts or certificates for work (for example, new windows, damp proofing or boiler installation)" and the "homeowner's logbook, file or manual, if one was provided". Section 11 is Services: "From 1 January 2005, all electrical installation work must follow building regulations", and a gas-fired boiler or solid fuel appliance "installed on or after 1 April 2005" required "a Building Control Completion Certificate, or installer's Building Regulations Compliance Certificate". The same section states "The wiring regulations relate to England and Wales" and "Building regulations have been different in England and Wales since 31 July 2014". Notes dated 13 October 2025 and stated to reflect the Law Society's understanding as at 1 September 2025; read at 244,923 bytes with a browser user agent. — The Law Society, "TA6 (6th edition) (2025) — explanatory notes for sellers and buyers", 2025
As in force: "A notice under subsection (1) or (2) above (called a 'section 36 notice') shall not be given after the expiration of 10 years from the date of the completion of the work in question." "10 years" was substituted for "12 months" by the Building Safety Act 2022, s.39(3); the amendment notes give commencement in England on 1 October 2023 and in Wales on 1 July 2026. The Act extends to England and Wales. — Building Act 1984, s.36(4), 1984
The subsection as enacted, for the twelve months the ten years replaced: "A section 36 notice shall not be given after the expiration of 12 months from the date of the completion of the work in question." — Building Act 1984, s.36 as enacted, 1984
A bank's own retention duty: five years beginning on the date the relevant person knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe, that the business relationship has come to an end, for records relating to a transaction occurring as part of that relationship (reg. 40(3)). — Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (SI 2017/692), reg. 40, 2017
"The organisation must give you a copy of the data they hold about you as soon as possible, and within 1 month at most." "In certain circumstances, for example particularly complex or multiple requests, the organisation can take a further 2 months to provide data." Requests are usually free. — GOV.UK, "Data protection: find out what data an organisation has about you", accessed 2026
Under the heading "Check if your energy supplier has followed the back billing rules": "Our back billing rules mean you do not have to pay for energy you used more than 12 months ago if: you've not had an accurate bill for it before; you've not been told about what you needed to pay through a statement of account before; your Direct Debit amount was previously set too low to cover what you needed to pay." "The rules apply to households and microbusinesses." Under "If you have 'acted unreasonably'": you will have to pay for energy used more than 12 months ago where you acted unreasonably, "for example by: stopping your supplier from billing you accurately, including by blocking access to your meter; ignoring requests for payment from your supplier; stealing electricity or gas". The longer URL used in earlier drafts 301-redirects here; this is the page as served. — Ofgem, "What to do if you get a back bill", accessed 2026

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