The first steps matter most when you sell.

No. We never pass your details to estate agents unless you explicitly ask us to. When you want an agent, you choose, and you decide who gets in touch.

No contract, no notice period, no tie-in. You can pause or remove your listing at any time, and instruct any agent you like, whenever you like.

Yes. Nothing in English or Welsh law requires an estate agent to be involved in a sale. What you do need is a conveyancing solicitor, and you would need one of those with an agent too. Once you and a buyer have agreed a price, your solicitors handle everything from there exactly as they would in an agent-led sale.

Most of an agent's work happens before the offer: marketing the home, finding buyers, running viewings and getting a price agreed. After that they write the memorandum of sale, which is a summary of who's buying what, at what price, with both solicitors' details on it. It isn't a legal document and it binds nobody. Then they chase: solicitors, surveyors, lenders, the chain. The legal work itself, searches and enquiries and contracts and exchange, belongs to the solicitors from beginning to end, agent or no agent.

Running your own viewings. Satisfying yourself that a buyer is genuine, which means asking about their funding, their chain and their timescale, and asking for a mortgage in principle and proof of funds — your solicitor will verify identity and money properly in any case. Sending the memorandum of sale, which in practice is an email setting out the property, the price, what's included and both solicitors' details. Giving access for the survey and the lender's valuation. Answering your solicitor's enquiries quickly. And the chasing.

It's the part that most often goes wrong, yes. Sales in England stall through waiting far more than through disagreement, and one with nobody pushing it can drift for months. Expect to ring your solicitor most weeks and to be the one who notices when something has gone quiet. The upside is that you're handling one sale rather than forty, and you care about it more than anyone else does. If that sounds like more than you want to take on, take the interest you've gathered to an agent instead — nothing you've done here is wasted.

The same way you'd sanity-check an agent anyway: sold prices for your street on the Land Registry, and homes like yours currently on the market. It's worth remembering that a valuation is an opinion, and the one given to win an instruction is not always the one the home eventually sells for. What you get here that a valuation can't give you is real buyers reacting to your actual home.

Yes, always — and earlier than most people think. Instructing one before you have an offer, so the contract pack and paperwork are ready to go, is the single most effective thing you can do to stop a sale dragging. We can introduce you to one, or you can use your own.

You do. Nobody knows your home better, and we'll give you a short guide on running one. You can also list without holding viewings yourself, and instruct an agent if the interest is worth acting on.

No. Your home isn't published on Rightmove, Zoopla or OnTheMarket while it's with us, so its listing history there starts fresh on the day your agent puts it live.

Then you've learned something valuable. It's insight you and your agent can use when setting the price and presentation on Rightmove, to improve the final result.

Three ways: the optional marketing pack, a referral fee if you choose an agent we introduce you to, and a referral fee if you use a solicitor or mortgage adviser we recommend. None of them cost you more, and you're never obliged to use anyone we suggest.

We use it to run your listing and keep you updated. We don't sell your data or share it with agents, solicitors or anyone else unless you ask us to. You can delete your account at any time, and we'll delete your information with it.