How to sell your house privately in Ireland without an estate agent

Yes. Irish law does not require an estate agent, and selling yourself keeps the agent's fee, typically 1% to 2% of the price plus 23% VAT, in your pocket: several thousand euro on a typical sale. The professional you do need is a conveyancing solicitor, who drafts the contract for sale, deals with the buyer's solicitor's Requisitions on Title, and hands over the deeds and keys at closing so the transfer can be registered with Tailte Eireann. You also need a valid BER before any advert goes up. Everything an agent would otherwise do becomes your job: pricing, photos, the advert, viewings, and negotiation.

1. Instruct a conveyancing solicitor and have them open the title file now, not once you have a buyer. 2. Get a BER from an SEAI-registered assessor, because Irish law requires one before you advertise. 3. Use LPT online on revenue.ie to check that every Local Property Tax return is filed and paid, since LPT clearance must be in place before the sale closes. 4. Set your price from what comparable homes actually sold for on the Residential Property Price Register, not from asking prices. 5. Advertise on Daft.ie, where a private seller places a paid ad through the Place Ad button, then add social media and word of mouth. 6. Run the viewings, agree a price, take a small booking deposit, and let the two solicitors carry it through signed contracts to closing.

Plenty of sellers read a guide like this and still hire an agent at the typical 1 to 2% commission plus VAT, especially in a market where homes go sale agreed in around 2.9 months. This site keeps the Irish routes on one page at /countries/ireland/find-an-agent, among them the PSRA register for confirming an agent's licence, the agent directories on Daft.ie and MyHome.ie, and how to weigh fees, valuations, and marketing plans against each other. A second path runs through the matching service at anyone.com/find-agent, where, on Anyone.com's own description, a seller gets paired with agents suited to the property's location, the home's type and size, and the price bracket involved; the company calls that matchmaking step free, claims a network of 4.6 million agents behind it, and leaves the commission to be negotiated afterward, directly between the seller and whichever agent they pick. Whichever route builds your shortlist, the Irish checks stay the same: confirm a current PSRA licence, invite two or three valuations, and negotiate the commission percentage before you sign anything.

Yes, a valid Building Energy Rating (BER) certificate is legally required before you place any advertisement. Every advert, whether on a portal, a social media post, or a printed flyer, must display the BER rating (A0 through G on certificates issued from 24 May 2026, A1 through G on older ones), the unique BER number, and the prescribed SEAI rating motif. To get one, hire a SEAI-registered BER assessor; you can find the register at seai.ie. A typical assessment costs roughly 150 to 250 EUR and takes a few hours on site. Certificates are valid for 10 years, so if you had one done when you bought the property it may still be valid. Fines for advertising without a valid BER can reach 5,000 EUR.

The buyer pays stamp duty, not the seller. Under the rates in force from 2 October 2024, the buyer pays 1% on the first 1,000,000 EUR of the purchase price, 2% on any amount between 1,000,000 EUR and 1,500,000 EUR, and 6% on the excess above 1,500,000 EUR. A separate 15% rate applies to bulk purchases of ten or more residential properties (excluding apartments) in any 12-month period. For a 400,000 EUR sale, that is 4,000 EUR out of the buyer's pocket. As seller, you have no stamp duty liability, but knowing the buyer's cost matters when negotiating because it affects what they can afford to offer. Verify the current rates on revenue.ie before relying on any figure, as the government has adjusted residential rates several times in recent years.

If the property has been your principal private residence (PPR) for the entire period you owned it, you qualify for full Principal Private Residence Relief and no CGT is due. The standard CGT rate in Ireland is 31% of the net gain for disposals from 7 October 2026 (33% before then), so the relief is substantial. Partial relief applies if you lived there for only part of your ownership period; the exempt portion is calculated based on the proportion of qualifying versus total years of ownership. There is also an annual CGT personal exemption of 1,270 EUR. Common traps: renting out part of the home for an extended period can restrict the relief; a period living abroad while keeping the property can also affect it. Get written advice from a tax adviser or Revenue before relying on PPR Relief, particularly in mixed-use or partial-occupancy scenarios. Revenue guidance is at revenue.ie/en/gains-gifts-and-inheritance/cgt-reliefs/principal-private-residence-ppr-relief.aspx.

In Ireland, conveyancing is solicitor-led, not notary-led as in many other European countries. Your solicitor prepares the contract for sale, assembles the title file, answers the buyer's solicitor's Requisitions on Title (a formal written questionnaire about the property's history and encumbrances), and on closing day receives the purchase funds, discharges any mortgage, and hands the title documents to the buyer's solicitor, who then registers the transfer with Tailte Eireann. Instruct a solicitor as early as possible, ideally before you list. Assembling the title file takes time: if the land is registered, your solicitor obtains the Folio from Tailte Eireann; if the property is unregistered (older stock), they work from original deeds. Delays in title investigation are the single most common reason Irish property sales fall through or overrun. Expect to pay roughly 1,200 to 2,500 EUR plus 23% VAT in solicitor's fees for a straightforward residential sale, plus outlays such as searches and Land Registry fees. Get a written quote, often a Section 150 letter, before you instruct.

A booking deposit is a small sum, often 3,000 to 5,000 EUR, paid by the buyer to take the property off the market after you agree a price. It is not legally binding on either party. Either side can walk away without penalty at this stage, which is why seasoned sellers do not spend the deposit until contracts are signed. The sale only becomes legally binding when both parties sign the contract for sale and the buyer pays the contract deposit, which is typically 10% of the agreed price less any booking deposit already paid. Until that moment, the buyer can pull out and the seller can accept a higher offer, which is the practice known colloquially as gazumping. If you want to reduce this risk, discuss a shorter timeline between accepted offer and signed contracts with your solicitor.

Revenue will not allow the title to transfer if LPT is outstanding. Before closing, you must ensure all LPT returns are filed and all payments are up to date for every year since LPT was introduced. You must also provide the buyer with a Property History Summary, which includes the property ID, the current valuation band, and the payment history. Your solicitor will check LPT compliance as part of replying to Requisitions on Title, but do not wait for them to flag it: log in to your myAccount on revenue.ie and confirm LPT is fully paid as soon as you decide to sell. If there is a shortfall, Revenue can block the transfer. The LPT valuation band also affects how much the buyer will pay going forward, so buyers may ask about it during negotiations.

Fairly fast, though the pace has eased a little. MyHome.ie's Q3 2026 report put the national average time to sale agreed at 2.9 months, up from 2.7 months a year earlier, with a national median asking price of 390,000 EUR and 14,630 homes listed for sale on MyHome at the end of September, 12.5% more than a year before. The CSO recorded national residential prices up 5.1% in the year to August 2026, with a national median dwelling price of 400,000 EUR, from 685,000 EUR in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown down to 199,000 EUR in Longford. Well-priced homes still sell quickly and often above asking, so set your price from sold comparables on the Residential Property Price Register rather than chasing other asking prices.

Almost all homes are sold by private treaty, meaning you set an asking price and negotiate with buyers; nothing is binding until both sides sign the contract for sale and the buyer pays the contract deposit. Auction is the main alternative: the highest bid on the day is binding immediately and the buyer must have finance and a solicitor ready, but auctions suit unusual or high-demand properties more than typical homes. Most private sellers use private treaty because it is flexible and familiar to buyers, but that flexibility is also why gazumping is possible until contracts are signed.

Selling without an agent removes the agent's commission, which typically runs 1% to 2% of the sale price plus 23% VAT (for example, roughly 6,000 EUR plus VAT on a 400,000 EUR sale at 1.5%). Your unavoidable seller costs are a conveyancing solicitor, commonly about 1,200 to 2,500 EUR plus VAT and disbursements, and a BER certificate at roughly 150 to 250 EUR. You also need LPT fully paid and any mortgage redeemed. The buyer, not you, pays stamp duty and the Land Registry transfer fee.

Not entirely, but you keep the whole agent's commission; the costs left are your advert fees, your BER and your solicitor. Daft.ie, where most Irish buyers begin their search, takes listings from private sellers directly through the Place Ad button on daft.ie, but as a paid advert, so confirm the current price of a private ad rather than budgeting zero for it. MyHome.ie, the other major portal, will not take a For Sale advert from an owner; only its participating estate agents can list homes for sale there. Anyone.com charges 0% commission and, by Anyone's own account, a one-time listing fee from $79. Its pages also describe an optional identity check a buyer can complete, a verified badge on offers from those accounts, and one workspace in which the listing, buyer messages, and documents sit together; a buyer who has not verified can still message you. It operates in 31 countries. Whatever the mix, the conveyancing solicitor, roughly 1,200 to 2,500 EUR plus VAT, stays the one professional cost an Irish seller cannot skip, and every advert must display the BER rating, BER number, and SEAI motif.

You need a solicitor. Irish residential conveyancing is solicitor-led and there is no notary; a qualified solicitor must prepare the contract for sale, investigate and prove title, reply to the buyer's solicitor's Requisitions on Title, and complete the transfer that is registered with Tailte Eireann. Selling privately means you take over the estate agent's job (pricing, photos, listing, viewings, negotiation), not the solicitor's. Instruct one before you list so the title file is ready and contracts can issue quickly once you go sale agreed.

Gazumping occurs when a seller agrees to sell then receives and accepts a higher offer before the contract is signed; it is legal in Ireland because the deal is not final until ink is on the contract. Your risk mirror is a buyer who backs away or demands renegotiation during the same window. You cannot eliminate it, but you can narrow it: ask for only a modest booking deposit, have your solicitor pre-prepare the contract and title file before you sell agreed, lean toward buyers with mortgage approval or ready cash, and accelerate both solicitors toward signature. A platform that lets buyers verify their identity and badges the ones who do gives you an early read on which inquiries are serious, which helps keep momentum through to contract signature. The badge is a signal, not a gate, so ask every interested buyer about mortgage approval and chain position yourself.