Realtor social media: Belfast new-build brief with NI Land Registry

What to take away

What Land & Property Services and the NI Land Registry publish

Land & Property Services is the Northern Ireland body that runs the rating system and produces the Northern Ireland House Price Index. For a Belfast new-build launch it gives you a defensible average price context for the city and for individual local government districts. You can quote a district figure in a caption without pretending it describes one scheme.

Keep the period visible. The index is published on a rolling basis, so a figure from an old release is easy to mistake for a current one when a campaign runs for months.

The NI Land Registry holds title and ownership records for Northern Ireland. It is the register you check when you want to say who owns a site, or whether a parcel has been split since the last transfer.

For launch content that matters when a scheme is marketed on land assembled from several titles, which is common on Belfast's older industrial frontages.

Both sit inside a wider official picture. HM Land Registry runs Price Paid Data for England and Wales, Registers of Scotland covers Scotland, and the ONS publishes housing and price statistics. If your audience includes buyers relocating from Great Britain, say which register applies where.

Our guide to five official property data sources, from Price Paid Data to the Companies House register, sets out the split.

For Northern Ireland housing regulation, the Housing (Amendment) Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 is part of the statutory backdrop you may need when a launch touches social housing or transfer rules. You do not need to quote it in a caption. You do need to know it exists before you make claims about tenure.

Registry records are slow-moving documents. They tell you what was registered, not what will be built. Treat them as the base layer, then add planning and EPC evidence on top.

Building a new-build launch brief from registry records

Build the brief in this order, keeping each claim tied to the record that supports it:

That fifth step is where launch content can overclaim. A developer quotes a starting price and the creator repeats it because it sounds safe. Include a price only if a current published document supports it; use “prices on application” only if the developer confirms that wording is current.

Keep the brief versioned. A property-media job should run from intake record to live release with one controlled version at a time, so a late planning condition does not sit in an old caption for weeks.

If you are appointing a supplier to shoot the launch, run checks on identity through exit before you hand over site access. It is the same discipline you apply to checking a developer's record.

Registry records also give you a quiet content angle. A title history can support a short post on how the site changed hands, which usually holds attention better than another render of a lift lobby.

The Northern Ireland EPC regime and what it changes for launch content

The Northern Ireland EPC regime is separate from the English and Welsh system. Certificates are produced under Northern Ireland rules and lodged on the NI EPC register, not the England and Wales register. A certificate from a Liverpool or Manchester scheme does not transfer to a Belfast address.

For launch content the practical effect is simple. If you say a Belfast home is energy efficient, you need the Northern Ireland certificate. If you say it will be cheaper to run, you need the certificate plus a stated basis for the running-cost claim.

The Cold Weather Payments Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2012 sit in the same statutory area as energy performance requirements for buildings in Northern Ireland. Cite the regime, not the regulation, in consumer-facing copy.

Energy claims attract Advertising Standards Authority scrutiny under the CAP Code. A rating is a fact. A saving is a projection. Keep them in separate sentences, and keep the certificate number in the pinned comment.

For planning your content calendar around this, there are official signals for property content worth tracking, with their dates and limitations attached.

Belfast new-build claims that need planning evidence

Planning evidence for launch claims is the file you keep when a claim could be checked by a buyer, a rival or the ASA. These four claim types need planning evidence:

A fifth type, price, is rarely in planning documents. If you cannot source it, do not publish it. Offer a private conversation instead.

Northern Ireland Assembly legislation covering housing and licensing rules sits in the NI Assembly legislation 2010 to 2019 archive. The NI legislation search feed lets you watch for new NI housing and new-build regulation as it is made.

Check the newest Northern Ireland legislation before a current Belfast brief goes out.

Conditions matter more than permissions in launch copy. A permission for 60 units with a condition capping occupation is a different story from a permission for 60 units.

Realtor social media brief template for a Belfast launch

Use this copy-and-fill checklist before any Belfast new-build launch content is scheduled:

The brief should name who owns each claim. On a Belfast launch that is usually the developer for price, the agent for availability and the creator for caption wording. When a dispute arises, the brief shows who checked what.

Keep it short. A brief that runs to six pages will not get used on site.

Example: a Belfast riverside launch brief with record citations

Take a fictional scheme, Riverside Quay, with 60 apartments on a site near the River Lagan. The example below shows how to cite each claim. Riverside Quay is fictional, so the bracketed citation fields are placeholders, not genuine record references.

For the example brief, fill in the citations from the records actually checked:

Notice what is missing. There is no starting price line, because no published document supports it. There is no "best value in Belfast" line, because that is an opinion dressed as a fact. There is also no completion month, only a phased year.

If the records in this fictional example support the details, the caption could read: “Riverside Quay: 60 apartments approved on the Lagan, phased completion from 2027, EPC B on the Northern Ireland certificate. District price context from Land & Property Services in the pinned comment.” Publish “60 apartments approved” and “phased completion from 2027” only if the decision notice and approved phasing material support those claims, and use EPC B only if the matching NI certificate confirms it.

The pinned comment should let a reader follow each claim to its record. Use the example format below, replacing every bracketed field with details checked against the actual record:

Planning: Belfast planning register, application [reference], decision notice [date], condition/approved plan [reference]. Land: NI Land Registry, folio [number], checked [date]. EPC: NI EPC register, certificate [number], address/unit [address], rating B. Price context: Land & Property Services Northern Ireland House Price Index, [release/period], [district].

Rerun the brief when the developer announces a price release or a new phase. The record set changes, and so does what you are allowed to say.

Common questions