The most relevant communications to archive are those confirming that the seller handed the title deeds to the solicitor for buyer-side inspection, and those showing that both parties fully agreed to the special conditions before signing the formal agreement. No separate mandatory category of agent communications is established by the cited guidance, so sellers should not assume that every message—or none—may be discarded.
Title-deed handover
The Community Legal Information Centre describes the seller giving the title deeds to the solicitor so they can be inspected for the buyer. A seller should therefore retain any written communication that records or confirms:
- which title deeds were provided;
- the date of handover;
- the purpose of the inspection; and
- where the deeds were held.
Keeping the record helps establish what was handed over and why. It does not, by itself, establish any wider legal requirement to retain the communication.
Agreement to special conditions
CLIC states that both parties must fully agree to all special conditions before signing the formal agreement. The relevant written record may therefore include messages, drafts, comments, acceptance records, or a signed copy showing the final agreed wording.
The key point to verify is the connection between agreement and signature. A seller should check that the retained material identifies the agreed version of the special conditions and that agreement was reached before the formal agreement was signed.
What about agent communications?
The cited guidance does not establish a separate agent-record category or a universal list of messages that must be kept. As a practical precaution, a seller should retain written agency communications that relate directly to either of the verified matters above—for example, instructions or confirmations concerning the title-deed handover or the special conditions.
Other retention questions remain for the seller to confirm, including whether a contractual or legal retention obligation applies to a particular document, where the original record is held, and how long it should be kept. The guidance reviewed for this article does not state a retention period or prescribe a complete archiving checklist.