HM Land Registry's Price Paid Data (PPD) is the closest thing England and Wales has to an official record of what houses actually sell for. It is free, it goes back to January 1995, and it is the raw material behind the sold-price figures on Rightmove, Zoopla and our own sold house prices tool. It is also partial, delayed, and full of rows that mean something other than what buyers assume.
That matters because people negotiate on it. The dataset omits entire categories of transaction, lags reality by months, records the price on a deed rather than the money that changed hands, and never once says why a property sold. Here is where the gaps are — sourced from HM Land Registry's own documentation — and how to sanity-check a figure before you rely on it.
| What the data says | What buyers assume it says | What is actually true |
|---|---|---|
| No sale recorded | It has never sold, or the price is hidden | Usually still inside the registration lag — or an excluded transaction type, such as a gift, an inheritance assent, or a Right to Buy sale at a discount |
| Sold for £312,000 on 14 March 2024 | The house was worth £312,000 then | That is the price on the transfer deed at completion, with carpets and free-standing furniture apportioned out, for a property in a condition the data never describes |
| Two rows, same address, same date | A duplicate, or a quick flip | Two registered titles changing hands — for example a leasehold flat bought together with a share of the building freehold. Neither row alone is the price of the flat |
| Category B | Something suspicious happened | A catch-all for transfers under a power of sale and repossessions, buy-to-lets identified by a mortgage, transfers to non-private individuals and "Other" property types. It never says which |
| A whole street sold on one date | A bulk investor purchase | A new-build estate whose plot registrations completed together lands in a single monthly release, long after the sales themselves completed |
What Price Paid Data actually is
Price Paid Data is published by HM Land Registry and, in its own words, "tracks property sales in England and Wales submitted to HM Land Registry for registration". Not Scotland (Registers of Scotland's ScotLIS), not Northern Ireland (Land and Property Services). Collection of standard residential sales — Category A — began in January 1995, the hard floor on any sale history you will ever see, and our own reports inherit that boundary exactly. It is released under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which is why anyone can republish it, and updated on the 20th working day of each month.
It sits on top of the land register itself — more than 27 million titles covering more than 90% of the land area of England and Wales, with 4.6 million register-change applications processed in 2025-26. But the most important sentence in the whole specification is the definition of the price field: the "Sale price stated on the transfer deed". Everything below follows from that. PPD records a land transaction — not a house, not a valuation, and not the full sum of money that passed between the parties.
The registration lag: why your neighbour's sale is not there yet
Three separate delays stack up, and only the first is about conveyancing. HM Land Registry states that the time between the sale of a property and registration "typically ranges between 2 weeks and 2 months", and that "data for the two most recent months is therefore incomplete and does not give an indication of final monthly volumes". Then PPD is only released monthly, so a sale registered on the 3rd waits for the 20th working day. Then the portals ingest that release on their own schedule: Rightmove's house prices page says that once HM Land Registry updates, "we typically update our sold prices within a few weeks, but this can sometimes take longer".
For the earliest sight of a figure, go to the GOV.UK Price Paid Data service rather than a portal — we compare the routes in Rightmove and Zoopla sold prices versus Land Registry.
New builds are the worst case by a wide margin. A new-build plot needs a brand new title carved out of the developer's land — a first registration. HM Land Registry completes half of all first-registration applications in about 8 months, and almost all in about 12. Until that finishes, the sale is simply not in the dataset.
The official statistics visibly bend around this. The UK House Price Index for May 2026 states that "transactions involving the creation of a new register, such as new builds, are more complex and need more time to process", and that new-build volumes for the most recent 2 months "are not at a reliable level for reporting the breakdown between new build and existing resold property, so they are not included in the report". A national statistic suppresses its own new-build series because the data has not arrived. The same release warns that UK HPI volumes for the most recent 12 months are provisional and should not be used to infer trends in sales activity.
If a sale is missing, work through this order
Completed in the last three months? Almost certainly the lag — check after the next monthly release. A new build? Expect to wait the better part of a year. Older sale, still nothing? Check the address is written as HM Land Registry holds it (flats are a building name plus a unit name), then consider that it may be an excluded transaction type.
What is excluded — and what is included that you would not expect
HM Land Registry publishes the exclusion list explicitly, and it explains most of the holes buyers find on a street. Note the last two rows: two things widely believed to be excluded are in fact present, just labelled in a way that hides them.
| Transaction type | In the data? | Consequence for a buyer |
|---|---|---|
| Sales not lodged with HM Land Registry | No | The register covers more than 90% of the land area of England and Wales, so the remainder stays invisible until something triggers first registration |
| Sales not for value | No | A house handed between family members for nothing leaves no trace |
| Right to Buy sales at a discount | No | Sales on estates with a Right to Buy history are under-represented |
| Transfers subject to an existing mortgage | No | A change of ownership with no price row |
| Transfers of a share on divorce, and gifts | No | Real changes of ownership with no price row |
| Compulsory purchase and court orders | No | Regeneration and road-scheme acquisitions do not appear as sales |
| Transfers to trustees under a deed of appointment | No | Trust restructurings are absent |
| Vesting deeds, transmissions or assents of more than one property | No | Written for multi-property assents; a single-property probate transfer is excluded anyway as a sale not for value, so a later open-market sale can look like the property's first |
| Leases of 7 years or less | No | HM Land Registry states it does not record leases of 7 years or less in the Price Paid dataset |
| Repossessions and transfers under a power of sale | Yes — Category B, since October 2013 | Included, but Category B also covers buy-to-lets and transfers to non-private individuals and never says which |
| Buy-to-lets and transfers to non-private individuals | Yes — Category B | The same undifferentiated bucket |
The Category B trap
HM Land Registry defines Category B as an "Additional Price Paid entry including transfers under a power of sale/repossessions, buy-to-lets (where they can be identified by a Mortgage), transfers to non-private individuals and sales where the property type is classed as 'Other'". Four very different things, one label. Nor should you read Category A as "arm's length sale in good condition" — it means only a single residential property sold for value.
How to read a Price Paid row properly
Almost every field carries a trap. This is the decoder we use internally when a sale history looks wrong.
| Field | What HM Land Registry means by it | The trap |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Sale price stated on the transfer deed | Not a valuation, and not the total money exchanged. Chattels are apportioned out (see below) |
| Date of transfer | The date on the deed — completion day | Not the date the price was agreed. In a slow chain that was months earlier, in a different market |
| PAON / SAON | Primary and secondary addressable object name: building, then unit | Flats are a building plus a unit name, so searching "Flat 4" alone finds nothing |
| Postcode | The postcode used at the time of the transaction | Postcodes get reallocated and PPD does not backfill, so an old sale can sit under a postcode the property no longer has |
| Property type | D detached, S semi, T terraced, F flat or maisonette, O other | "O" covers things like a property comprising more than one large parcel of land. Never use an O row as a comparable |
| Old / New | Y newly built, N established building | A new-build sale is not a like-for-like comparable for a later resale of the same home, and new-build rows arrive late |
| Duration | F freehold, L leasehold | One home can produce both rows. Neither alone is the price of the home |
| Record status | A addition, C change, D deletion (monthly files) | Rows get corrected and deleted after publication. A figure you screenshotted last month may no longer exist |
The price is the price of a land transaction, not of a house
Because the recorded figure is the consideration on the transfer deed, it excludes anything the parties correctly treated as not part of the land. HMRC's Stamp Duty Land Tax Manual requires "a just and reasonable apportionment" where a price is paid partly for a land transaction and partly for something else, and lists items normally regarded as chattels: carpets fitted or otherwise, curtains and blinds, free-standing furniture, kitchen white goods, removable fires, light shades. Fitted kitchen units, bathroom sanitary ware, central heating and alarm systems are not chattels and stay in the price. So a house marketed at £450,000 with £8,000 properly apportioned to furnishings appears as £442,000 — nothing improper, just a narrower question than the one you asked.
The same logic explains the duplicate rows. A leasehold flat and a share of the building freehold are two registered titles, so buying both produces two rows, often for wildly different amounts. Our guide to leasehold versus freehold explains the structure; the practical rule is that you cannot add the rows together, and cannot use either in isolation without knowing which interest it represents.
What sold price data can never tell you
These are not gaps better tooling closes. They sit outside what the dataset records at all.
- Why it sold. Divorce, probate, relocation, a chain collapse — none of it is recorded. Category B hints at a distressed or investor sale but conflates four possibilities.
- Condition. A £312,000 sale might have been an immaculate extended house or a damp shell. Pair the price with the EPC record for floor area and construction-age band, plus archived listing photos.
- Whether the buyer overpaid. One transaction is one buyer on one day. Comparables need a set, not a single row — the logic behind ceiling price analysis.
- Who owned it. PPD holds no names. Ownership sits on the title register, a separate £7 purchase direct from HM Land Registry — see previous owners of a house.
- What was done to it. Extensions, loft conversions and change of use live in the council's planning history, not in the price.
- Exactly when it was built. The new-build flag is a yes/no on that transaction only. For age you need the EPC construction band and other evidence — see when was my house built.
How to sanity-check a sold price in ten minutes
- Pull the full sale history, not one row. £180,000 in 2016 and £312,000 in 2024 tells a story; the 2024 figure alone does not.
- Check the duration field on every row and work out which interest each represents before comparing anything.
- Discount the last two months entirely. HM Land Registry says they are incomplete; reading a thin recent month as a falling market is a classic error.
- Exclude new builds unless you are buying one — and expect recent new-build sales on the street to be missing altogether.
- Normalise by floor area: divide each price by the EPC floor area for a £ per square metre figure, the only fair way to compare non-identical homes.
- Cross-check the planning history. A neighbour who sold high two years ago may have added an extension you have not accounted for.
What to ask the agent
- "Was anything apportioned to fixtures and fittings in that sale?" — explains a price that looks low against the marketing.
- "Has the property been extended or converted since the last sale?" — the single biggest reason a price history under-reads current value.
- "Is the freehold included, and was it bought separately?" — pre-empts the duplicate-row confusion.
- "Why is the seller moving?" — the agent may not answer, but the data certainly will not.
When to disregard a figure entirely
Disregard a row if it is Category B and you cannot establish what kind of transaction it was; if the property type is "O"; if it is more than about five years old and the market has moved; if it is a new build and you are valuing a resale; or if the floor area is materially different from yours. One unrepresentative comparable does more damage than none. Sold prices are also only one of the official records a purchase turns on — our guide to the conveyancing property search covers the rest.
Where our own data stops
We should be straight about this, because we sell reports built on this dataset. HouseDossier presents Price Paid Data from 1995 onwards for England and Wales, and inherits every limitation above — the same lag, the same exclusions, the same silence on condition and motive. Comparable sales matched by property type and ceiling-price analysis are Full Dossier features, not part of the Quick Check. We do not produce an automated valuation and will not tell you what a property is worth. We do not supply the title register, title deeds or owner names. We do not cover Scotland or Northern Ireland. Where the honest answer is a RICS surveyor, a conveyancer or the council, we say so.
What a report does do is assemble the checks around the price, so a comparable stops being a bare number: sale history, EPC floor area and construction-age band, Environment Agency flood risk, ground and mining risk, nearby planning applications, council tax band, broadband, schools and crime. The pillar guide to property history search maps the whole set; how to find sold house prices covers the free routes step by step.
See the full sale history, not one row
Enter any address in England or Wales for its complete Land Registry sale history since 1995, EPC floor area, flood and ground risk, planning history and 15+ other official checks. Free preview; Quick Check £9.95; Full Dossier £19.95, which adds matched comparables and ceiling-price analysis.
Check a property freeFrequently asked questions
How soon after a house is sold does the price appear on Rightmove?
Three delays stack up. HM Land Registry says the gap between a sale and registration typically ranges between 2 weeks and 2 months. Price Paid Data is then only published on the 20th working day of each month. Rightmove states that once HM Land Registry updates, it typically updates its sold prices within a few weeks, but this can sometimes take longer. New builds are far slower again, because they need a first registration.
Why can I not find the sold price of a house?
The likeliest reasons, in order: the sale is still inside the registration lag; it is a new build awaiting first registration (HM Land Registry completes half of first registrations in about 8 months); the address is recorded differently in the data, especially for flats; or the transaction is one Price Paid Data excludes — a gift, a transfer on divorce, a Right to Buy sale at a discount, a compulsory purchase, or an assent following a death.
Does Land Registry sold price data include repossessions?
Yes, since October 2013, but they are not identified as such. Transfers under a power of sale are recorded as PPD Category B — a bucket that also contains buy-to-lets identifiable by a mortgage, transfers to non-private individuals, and sales where the property type is "Other". A Category B row tells you the sale was unusual in some way, not which way.
Why does the same property show two sold prices on the same date?
Normally because two registered titles changed hands. A leasehold flat bought together with a share of the freehold produces a leasehold row and a freehold row. The Duration field (F or L) tells you which is which. You cannot add them together, and neither figure on its own is the price of the home.
Is the Land Registry sold price the full amount the buyer paid?
No. HM Land Registry records the sale price stated on the transfer deed. Anything properly apportioned to chattels — carpets, curtains, free-standing furniture, white goods — sits outside that figure under HMRC's stamp duty rules. A £450,000 sale with £8,000 apportioned to furnishings appears as £442,000.
How far back does Land Registry price paid data go?
Standard residential sales (Category A) have been collected since January 1995 for England and Wales. There is no earlier data, so a house that has not changed hands since 1994 shows no sale history at all. Category B entries were only identified from October 2013.
Can sold price data change after it is published?
Yes. The monthly files carry a record status of A for addition, C for change and D for deletion, so previously published rows can be corrected or removed. Separately, UK House Price Index volumes for the most recent 12 months are provisional and subject to revision.