Using HM Land Registry Price Paid Data to check a property claim

What to take away

What Price Paid Data actually records, and what it leaves out

HM Land Registry Price Paid Data is the official record of property sales in England and Wales. It captures the address, the price paid, the date of transfer, the property type and whether the sale was new build or existing.

It also shows the tenure, freehold or leasehold, and the unique property reference number. For a property creator, this is the closest thing to a receipt for a completed sale.

The dataset does not cover everything. It excludes sales that were not lodged for value, such as some transfers between family members, and it does not record asking prices or rejected offers.

It also misses most sales in Scotland and Northern Ireland, which have their own registers. If your claim depends on a Scottish sale, you need Registers of Scotland, not HM Land Registry.

Price Paid Data is updated monthly and covers sales from 1995 onwards. Each record is a single transaction, so you can count sales on a street or in a postcode. That makes it useful for claims about volume, such as 'twelve homes sold on this road last year'.

It is less useful for claims about average asking prices, because it only shows what buyers actually paid.

For a wider view of official sources, including the Companies House register and the EPC register, see our guide to Price Paid Data. That article covers the five official property data sources that creators can rely on.

One common mistake is treating Price Paid Data as a live feed. It is not. There is a lag between completion and publication, often several weeks. If you post a claim about 'last month's sales' before the data lands, you may be working from an incomplete picture. Always check the release date on the dataset page.

Pulling a Price Paid Data extract for a postcode or street

You do not need a data licence to download Price Paid Data. HM Land Registry publishes the full dataset as CSV files, split by year and by region.

You can also use the search tool on the Housing and local services - GOV.UK hub, which links to the official download pages. Start there for guidance on what is available and how to cite it.

The quickest route for a single postcode is the online search. Enter the postcode, set a date range, and the tool returns a list of sales. You can filter by property type, tenure and new build status. For a street-level claim, search the street name and then sort by date. This gives you a raw list you can count.

For anything more than a few dozen records, download the CSV. The files are large, so use a spreadsheet or a database tool. Filter by postcode district first, then by date.

If you are checking a claim about a specific development, filter by the postcode sector and the property type. That removes noise from nearby streets with different housing stock.

Here is a numbered process for a clean extract:

Once you have the extract, check the number of sales. A claim about a price rise on a street with two sales in a year is weak. A claim about a postcode district with two hundred sales is stronger.

The denominator matters, which is why we wrote about metrics defined down to the event. That article explains how to attach a denominator to a property claim.

If you need to verify a claim about a public authority's housing decisions, you can use the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the underlying records. The Act gives you a right of access to information held by public authorities, subject to exemptions.

That is useful when a council or a housing body holds data that is not published.

Testing a market claim against ONS house price statistics

ONS house price statistics are the official measure of house price change across the UK. They are based on completed sales, including data from HM Land Registry, Registers of Scotland and Land & Property Services in Northern Ireland. The headline figure is the average house price and the annual percentage change, published monthly.

The ONS series is not a street-level tool. It gives regional and national averages, often with a lag of several weeks. If your claim is 'prices in Manchester are up 12%', the ONS figure for the North West is the right comparison. If your claim is 'prices on my street are up 12%', the ONS figure cannot support it.

When you test a claim, match the geography first. ONS publishes data for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, plus the English regions. Greater London, the North West, the West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber all have their own breakdowns.

If your post is about a specific town, check whether the ONS has a local authority figure. Many do, but not all.

Then match the period. A claim about 'the last year' should use the latest 12-month change, not a calendar year figure. ONS also publishes a monthly index, which can be volatile. A single month's rise is not a trend. If you want to make a trend claim, use the annual change or a rolling average.

Finally, check the revision status. ONS figures are revised as more data arrives. A figure you quoted last month may have changed. Always note the release date and the version you used.

For a structured way to attach dates and limitations to official signals, see our article on official signals for property content. It sets out how to present data without overclaiming.

If you are citing housing or consumer law in your post, use the Research tools on Legislation.gov.uk to confirm you have the current version of an Act.

The site also has an index of UK Public General Acts, which is the authoritative source for citing statutes such as the Housing Act or the Consumer Rights Act. Do not rely on a secondary summary when the primary text is free to check.

Realtor social media claims that Price Paid Data cannot support

Some claims are beyond what Price Paid Data can prove. Here are the common ones, and what to use instead.

Asking price claims. Price Paid Data shows what buyers paid, not what sellers asked. If you say 'asking prices are up 12%', you need a portal index or a survey, not Land Registry data. Be clear about which measure you are using.

Rental yield claims. Price Paid Data gives sale prices, but not rents. For yields, you need rental listings or a rent index. The ONS publishes a private rent index, but it is not in Price Paid Data.

Future price claims. No official dataset predicts prices. If you say 'prices will rise 12% next year', that is a forecast, not a fact. Label it as your opinion and explain your reasoning.

Off-market and private sales. Many high-value or family transfers never appear in Price Paid Data. A claim that 'no homes sold on this street' may be wrong if sales happened privately.

Scotland and Northern Ireland sales. Price Paid Data covers England and Wales only. For Scottish sales, use Registers of Scotland. For Northern Ireland, use Land & Property Services. Mixing them up is a factual error.

New build premiums. Price Paid Data flags new builds, but it does not isolate the premium paid for being new. You can compare new build and existing prices in the same postcode, but you need to control for size and type. That is a modelling exercise, not a lookup.

If your claim touches on financial promotions, remember that the Financial Conduct Authority regulates financial promotions. A post that encourages investment in property could fall under FCA rules. The Advertising Standards Authority also applies the CAP Code to marketing communications, including social media. Both bodies have published guidance that creators should read before making money-related claims.

A verification table: claim, source, date, limitation

Use this table as a template. Fill it in before you post. It forces you to name the source, the date and the limitation for every factual claim.

The table is not a legal requirement, but it is a discipline. It also gives you something to show if a viewer challenges your numbers. Keep the filled table in your notes, even if you do not publish it.

For claims about agency businesses, check the Companies House register for filing history and directors. For licensing in Wales, check Rent Smart Wales. For redress, check whether the agent is a member of The Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme. These checks are separate from price data, but they matter for credibility.

If you need to cite the statute behind a consumer or housing claim, use the Legislation.gov.uk Acts index of UK Public General Acts. That is the authoritative list, and it links to the current text of each Act.

Example: checking a 'prices up 12%' claim before it is posted

Imagine you want to post: 'Prices in Chorlton are up 12% in the last year. Buy now before you are priced out.' Chorlton is a suburb of Manchester, with postcodes in the M21 area. Here is how to check it.

Step 1: Define the claim. You are claiming a 12% rise in average sold prices in Chorlton over 12 months. You are also implying urgency, which is a marketing claim.

Step 2: Pull Price Paid Data for M21. Download the CSV for the last two years. Filter to M21 and to standard sales. Count the sales in the latest 12 months and the previous 12 months. Calculate the average price for each period.

Step 3: Check the sample. If M21 had 40 sales in the latest year and 35 in the previous year, the sample is small. A single expensive sale can shift the average. Look at the median as well as the mean.

If the median rise is 6% and the mean rise is 12%, the mean is being skewed by a few large sales.

Step 4: Compare with ONS. Look up the ONS house price statistics for the North West. If the ONS annual change is 4%, your 12% claim is far above the regional average. That does not make it false, but it needs explanation. Maybe Chorlton has a different mix of property types. Maybe your sample is unrepresentative.

Step 5: Adjust the claim. If the data shows a 6% median rise for M21, post that instead. Say 'median sold prices in M21 rose 6% in the last year, based on HM Land Registry Price Paid Data'. Add the date you downloaded the data. That is a defensible claim.

Step 6: Record the limitation. Note that the figure is based on completed sales, excludes private sales, and may be revised. If you are using a small sample, say so. If you are using the mean, say so.

Step 7: Check the urgency language. 'Buy now before you are priced out' is a financial promotion. The FCA rules on financial promotions apply to some property investment content. The ASA's CAP Code also requires that marketing communications are not misleading.

If your claim is not supported, the urgency is misleading. Remove it or replace it with a factual statement.

Step 8: Publish with the source. Put the source and date in the post or in a pinned comment. Link to the GOV.UK housing and local services hub for the dataset. That gives your audience a route to check you.

This process takes about an hour for a single postcode. It is worth it. A claim that survives checking is more persuasive than a bold number that falls apart. It also protects you from an ASA ruling or a complaint under the CAP Code.

If you want to go further, you can build a simple spreadsheet that pulls in Price Paid Data and ONS figures for your patch. Update it monthly. Over time, you will have a local dataset that is more granular than anything published. That is a genuine content advantage, and it is built on official records.

But remember that official records will not give you a property-media benchmark; you have to build that yourself, as we explain in official records will not give.

Common questions