Sold house prices on Land Registry explained
Land Registry sold prices come from Price Paid Data, published monthly for England and Wales from 1995. A sale typically takes 2 weeks to 2 months to be registered, so the latest two months are incomplete. The data leaves out gifts, discounted right to buy sales, court-ordered transfers and other sales not at full value.
Where the figures come from
When a home is sold, the transfer is lodged with HM Land Registry so the new owner can be registered. Price Paid Data is built from those applications. HM Land Registry describes it as covering residential property sales in England and Wales that are sold for value and lodged for registration.
So the figures are records of real transactions and not estimates, surveys or asking prices. They are published under the Open Government Licence, which is why the same sales appear across many property websites. The data starts on 1 January 1995.
How long a sale takes to appear
There are two separate delays.
- From sale to registration: HM Land Registry says this gap typically ranges from 2 weeks to 2 months, and occasionally runs longer.
- From registration to publication: the data is updated on the 20th working day of each month, and each release covers what was received in the previous month. The release of 28 October 2026 carried the September 2026 data.
In practice, a sale that completed last week will not be visible for some time, and allowing two to three months is sensible. HM Land Registry states plainly that data for the two most recent months is incomplete and does not indicate final monthly volumes. If you are counting sales on a street or in a town, leave out those two months.
What Price Paid Data excludes
Plenty of property transfers never appear in the data. According to HM Land Registry, it leaves out:
- Sales that have not been lodged with HM Land Registry.
- Sales that were not for value.
- Transfers at a premium with a nominal rent, which include right to buy sales at a discount.
- Transfers subject to an existing mortgage.
- Transfers of a share in a property, for example between parties on divorce.
- Gifts.
- Transfers under a compulsory purchase order or a court order.
- Transfers to trustees under a deed of appointment.
- Vesting deeds, transmissions or assents of more than one property.
- Transactions where the price is stated as including VAT, because HM Land Registry does not decide how much VAT to apply to historic sales.
- Leases of 7 years or less.
These exclusions are why a house can change hands without leaving a price behind. A home passed down a family or transferred after a divorce may have a new owner and no new price paid record. The absence of a record tells you nothing about the property. It only means no qualifying transaction has been published.
Category A and Category B
Each record has a category, which matters when you compare sales.
| Category | What it covers | Collected since |
|---|---|---|
| A: standard | A single residential property sold for value | January 1995 |
| B: additional | Repossessions and other transfers under a power of sale, buy-to-lets where they can be identified, transfers to non-private individuals, and sales where the property type is classed as other | October 2013 |
Two things follow. A repossession sold below the going rate can sit among ordinary sales if you do not filter by category. Also, because Category B only starts in October 2013, a straight count of sales before and after that date is not a fair comparison.
Reading a record
Beyond the price and date, a record carries a property type, an old or new flag (Y for a newly built home, N for an established one), and a duration field showing freehold or leasehold. The type "other" is used for cases the standard values do not cover, such as a property comprising more than one large parcel of land.
Records can change. The monthly files carry a status showing whether a line has been added, changed or deleted, so a sale can be corrected after it first appears. If you find an error for a home you know, GOV.UK has a route to report a correction.
How this differs from the title register
Price Paid Data and the title register are both held by HM Land Registry, but they do different jobs. The price data is free and lists past sales without names. The title register costs £7 online, names the current owner and usually shows the last price, although HM Land Registry has only entered prices routinely since 1 April 2000.
If you want the owner's name, see how to find out who owns a property. If you want to look up a sale, start with house sale history by address or the sold house prices page.
Questions, answered
Why has a sale not appeared after three months?
HM Land Registry says the gap between sale and registration is occasionally longer than two months, and the transfer may also fall into an excluded type. Neither suggests anything is wrong with the property or the sale.
Does the data include new builds?
Yes, where the sale is otherwise included, and new homes are flagged in the old or new field. A price stated as including VAT would take a transaction out of the data.
Does it cover Scotland or Northern Ireland?
No. Price Paid Data applies to England and Wales. GOV.UK points to ScotLIS for Scottish prices and Land and Property Services for Northern Ireland.
Is a Land Registry sold price a valuation?
No. It records what was paid on a past date. It does not reflect condition, later work or today's market.