How to prepare a property for sale

Paperwork first, bucket second

Preparing a property does not start with cleaning, it starts with the title deed. Download a current extract from the land registry and go through sections C and D. A lien from a mortgage that has been repaid but never removed, a note about proceedings that have begun, or an old easement of way across the plot can hold up the signing by weeks. All of it can be dealt with calmly in advance; under the pressure of a reservation contract it cannot.

The same folder should also hold the declaration of unit ownership, the floor plan, the energy performance certificate and the latest service charge statement. Buyers will want to see all of them, and they will read how quickly they get them as a sign of how the rest of the sale will go.

Clear out, do not tidy up

The difference between a tidy apartment and a prepared one is roughly eight boxes. Everything that cannot be described as fittings comes off the horizontal surfaces: papers, chargers, cosmetics, magnets, the clothes airer. Shoes and coats leave the hall. Everything on the outside of the fridge goes. Wardrobes are thinned out by about a third, because buyers open them and a full wardrobe means a small wardrobe.

Personal photographs come down. It is not about taste; it is that buyers look at them instead of at the room.

Small repairs that always pay for themselves

• Match all the bulbs to one colour of light, ideally warm white. The cheapest intervention with the biggest difference in the photographs.
• Tighten the handles, oil the hinges, replace cracked silicone in the shower and around the sink.
• Touch up local scuffs. The whole flat does not need repainting; a fresh patch on a busy wall does.
• Clean the grouting and descale the taps. Limescale in a photograph reads as a neglected bathroom.
• Clean the windows on the outside. On an apartment with a view that is half the value of the image.

Refine, do not refurnish

Home staging in an occupied property does not mean new furniture. It means unifying what is already there: one set of towels, one set of bedlinen, one rug, one set of cushions. The combination of five patterns goes. In an empty property it is worth bringing a minimum in · a table, two chairs, greenery and light · because an empty room always looks smaller in a photograph than it is.

Plants work almost every time and are the one piece of decoration I recommend without reservation. One large plant in the living room does more than ten small objects.

Shooting has its own timing

Interiors are photographed in daylight, on a day when the sun is not blazing straight through the windows. Exteriors and gardens need the late afternoon instead. For apartments with a view it is worth coming twice: once during the day for the layout, once at dusk for the thing somebody is actually buying.

The order of the images follows the walk through the property. Anyone looking at the photographs should be able to walk through the flat in their head afterwards. That is the whole method.

The last check before a viewing

Half an hour beforehand: air the rooms, switch on every light including the lamps, raise the blinds, hide the bin, close the toilet lids and take the pet out. It sounds like small stuff. In fact it is the only part of the whole process the buyer experiences first-hand.