House prices and rents: HM Land Registry and the UK House Price Index

HM Land Registry is the government body that registers land and property ownership in England and Wales, and it publishes Price Paid Data on every residential sale registered for value since 1995. With the Office for National Statistics, Registers of Scotland and Land and Property Services Northern Ireland it produces the UK House Price Index, the official measure of house price change. Fact-checkers use these sources, alongside the ONS Price Index of Private Rents, to test claims about what homes cost, how fast prices and rents are rising and what a specific property sold for.

Covers: England and Wales · Release calendar

What it publishes

Price Paid Data: address, price, date, property type, new build flag and tenure for residential sales in England and Wales lodged for registration, from January 1995.
Category A (standard) and Category B (additional) transactions, where Category B covers repossessions, buy-to-let purchases identified by a mortgage, sales to companies and other non-standard sales, recorded since October 2013.
The UK House Price Index (UK HPI): monthly average prices, index values and annual and monthly changes for the UK, its countries, regions and local authorities, by property type, buyer type, funding and new or existing build.
Linked open data versions of Price Paid Data and the UK HPI, queryable through a SPARQL endpoint and report builders.
Ownership datasets listing UK companies and overseas entities that own registered land in England and Wales, available after creating an account and accepting a licence.
Official copies of title registers and title plans for individual properties, which show the owner, any mortgage and usually the last price paid.
Through ONS, the monthly Private rent and house prices bulletin, combining the UK HPI with the Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) for average rents and rental inflation across the UK.
Through ONS, House price statistics for small areas, giving median prices by local authority and neighbourhood on a rolling-year basis (last updated in September 2023).

Key datasets

Price Paid Data downloads
Every residential sale for value in England and Wales lodged with HM Land Registry since 1995, as monthly, yearly and complete single files.
Updated: Monthly (20th working day)
About the Price Paid Data
Column definitions, the A and B categories, excluded transaction types, and guidance on record changes and deletions.
Updated: Updated as needed
UK House Price Index reports
Monthly UK HPI bulletin and full data downloads for the UK, its countries, regions and local authorities. England and Wales from 1995, Scotland from 2004, Northern Ireland from 2005.
Updated: Monthly
About the UK House Price Index
Methodology, revision policy, data sources and release dates for the UK HPI.
Updated: Updated as needed
ONS Private rent and house prices, UK
Monthly ONS bulletin with headline UK HPI figures and average rents and rental inflation from the Price Index of Private Rents, for the UK, its countries and English regions.
Updated: Monthly
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, UK: monthly price statistics
Average private rents and annual rental change by country, region, local authority and property size.
Updated: Monthly
ONS House price statistics for small areas (HPSSA) median prices
Median prices paid by property type for local authorities and smaller areas in England and Wales, on a rolling-year basis, derived from Price Paid Data. The latest edition on the ONS page is dated 20 September 2023, with the next release to be announced.
Updated: Irregular (last updated September 2023)
Northern Ireland House Price Index
Land and Property Services' own quarterly index for Northern Ireland, which feeds the UK HPI.
Updated: Quarterly
Search for land and property information
Official route to a property summary (free) or a title register or title plan (fee payable) for a property in England or Wales.
Updated: Live service

APIs and downloads

Price Paid Data single, yearly and monthly files
CSV and TXT files with no header row; the complete single file averages about 5 GB and yearly files range from about 115 MB to 230 MB. Open Government Licence, with Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey conditions on address data.
Price Paid Data report builder
Web form to filter sales by postcode, area, date, price and property type, with CSV download. No key.
HM Land Registry linked data and SPARQL
Linked data for Price Paid Data and the UK HPI, with a public SPARQL query endpoint at landregistry.data.gov.uk/landregistry/query returning JSON, CSV or XML. No key.
SPARQL query console (Qonsole)
Browser console with example SPARQL queries for price paid and house price index data.
UK HPI data browser
Select areas, dates and indicators from the UK HPI and download CSV or JSON. No key.
UK companies that own property in England and Wales
Monthly CSV of registered land owned by UK companies and corporate bodies, by download or API. Requires an account and acceptance of the data licence; an API key is issued after sign-in.
Overseas companies that own property in England and Wales
Monthly CSV of registered land owned by overseas companies, under the same account, licence and API key arrangements as the UK companies dataset.

When it publishes

The UK HPI is published monthly at 9:30am, usually in the middle or third week of the month, covering prices two months earlier; HM Land Registry's collection page gives the next date and links the full calendar. ONS publishes its Private rent and house prices bulletin on the same day, with rents one month more recent than house prices. Price Paid Data is updated on the 20th working day of each month. MHCLG housing supply and homelessness statistics, the usual sources for claims about new homes and temporary accommodation in England, follow their own calendars on GOV.UK.

How to use it to check a claim

For an average house price claim, use the UK HPI for the named month and area and note that its average is a geometric mean from a mix-adjusted index, which runs lower than a simple arithmetic average.
Check how recent the UK HPI month is: each release covers sales two months earlier, and the latest months are revised as more registrations arrive.
For what a particular home sold for, search Price Paid Data or the report builder by postcode, then confirm against the title register if the sale is recent or missing.
For neighbourhood comparisons, the ONS small-area statistics use medians and go below local authority level, but check their date; the UK HPI itself stops at local authority level.
For rent claims, use the ONS Price Index of Private Rents and specify whether the figure is the average rent level or the annual percentage change, and for which country.
For counts of sales, remember that the two most recent months of Price Paid Data are incomplete and should not be compared with earlier months.
For claims about new housing supply or homelessness in England, go to MHCLG's net supply of housing and homelessness statistics rather than the price data.

Common mistakes

Asking prices published by property portals and mortgage-approval indices from lenders measure different things from the UK HPI, which is based on completed sales and so lags the market.
Price Paid Data excludes sales not for value, most right to buy discounts, transfers on divorce, gifts and some bulk transactions, so it is not a full count of all property transfers.
Category B transactions, such as repossessions and company purchases, can distort local averages if they are included alongside standard sales.
UK HPI figures for the most recent 12 months are routinely revised, so a figure quoted when first published may differ from the current series.
Rents for Scotland and Northern Ireland are collected differently, and ONS advises caution when comparing them with England and Wales.
Price Paid Data and the UK HPI cover sales, not valuations; they say nothing directly about the current value of a home that has not sold.

How long does it take for a house sale to appear on the Land Registry?

HM Land Registry states that the time between a sale and its registration typically ranges from two weeks to two months, and occasionally longer. Price Paid Data is published monthly, on the 20th working day, so a completed sale usually appears within one to three months. Data for the two most recent months is incomplete and gives no indication of final sales volumes.

Is the UK House Price Index the official house price figure?

The UK HPI is the government's official house price index, produced jointly by HM Land Registry, the Office for National Statistics, Registers of Scotland and Land and Property Services Northern Ireland. It uses completed sales registered with those bodies and a hedonic regression to adjust for the mix of homes sold. Indices from lenders and property portals are produced by private companies using their own data.

Can I find out who owns a property and what they paid?

For England and Wales, the GOV.UK search for land and property information gives a free property summary and lets you buy the title register, which names the registered owner, shows any mortgage and usually records the price last paid. Price Paid Data gives prices but not names. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate registers.

Where do official figures on private rents come from?

The Office for National Statistics publishes the Price Index of Private Rents each month in its Private rent and house prices bulletin, giving average rents and annual change for the UK, its countries, English regions and local authorities. ONS introduced the index in 2024 in place of two earlier rent measures, and its bulletin notes that the series became official statistics on 20 May 2026. Older figures quoted from the earlier measures may not match.

Questions answered using this source

Links checked 2026-10-13. This page describes what the source publishes and gives no verdict on any claim.