After completion, keep the receipts for the relevant deposits and outgoings. The Estate Agents Authority states that these receipts can support an apportionment account, under which all outgoings are apportioned between the seller and buyer.
Which receipts should be in the file?
- Receipts for relevant deposits: These can support the deposit entries in the apportionment account.
- Receipts for relevant outgoings: These connect the relevant payments with the outgoings apportioned between the seller and buyer.
How to check which receipts are relevant
Compare each receipt with the corresponding entry in the completed apportionment account:
- Identify entries recorded as deposits or outgoings.
- Match those entries to the relevant receipts.
- Retain any receipt whose connection is unclear while checking the transaction documents rather than discarding it immediately.
The cited Estate Agents Authority wording does not provide a universal list of payment types. It therefore supports checking receipts against the individual account rather than assuming that every bank record is relevant.
What the seller must still confirm
The transaction documents and the completed account may contain additional details that the cited guidance does not address. The seller should still confirm:
- whether each receipt corresponds to a deposit or outgoing entry;
- whether any transaction-specific document requires additional records; and
- whether any retention period or other instruction applies.
The quoted guidance does not state how long receipts must be kept, so it should not be treated as establishing a universal retention deadline.