Property Data

How to Read Sold Price History, Understanding UK House Price Records

HM Land Registry publishes sold prices for every registered residential transaction in England and Wales. This guide explains how to find and interpret sold price data, what the records show, and their limitations.

Published: 13 Feb 2026 · Updated: 16 Mar 2026 · 7 min read

#PropertyData#UKPropertyData#HousePrices#SoldPrices#PropertyMarket#PropertyPassportUK

Where Does Sold Price Data Come From?

HM Land Registry (HMLR) publishes **Price Paid Data** for every registered residential property transaction in England and Wales. This data has been available to the public since 1995 and is updated monthly. It includes the sale price, date of transaction, full address, property type, whether the sale was of a new build, and the tenure (freehold or leasehold).

What the Records Show

Each sold price record contains:

Field	Description
Price	Actual consideration paid, as registered with HMLR
Date of transfer	The legal completion date (when keys were handed over)
Postcode	Full unit postcode
Property type	D = Detached, S = Semi-detached, T = Terraced, F = Flat/Maisonette, O = Other
Old/New	Y = newly built; N = established residential building
Duration	F = Freehold; L = Leasehold
PAON	Primary Addressable Object Name (building name or number)
SAON	Secondary Addressable Object Name (flat/unit within a building)
Street, town, district, county	Full address components

How to Find Sold Prices

**HMLR Search Portal:** HMLR's public-facing search tool (gov.uk/search-house-prices) allows you to search by postcode, street, or town.

**HMLR Price Paid Dataset:** For researchers and developers, the full Price Paid Data is available as a downloadable dataset from HMLR.

**Property Passport UK:** Displays sold price history for individual properties alongside EPC data and HMLR title information.

**Rightmove, Zoopla, and OnTheMarket:** These portals display sold price history on property listing pages, sourced from HMLR data.

Key Limitations of Sold Price Data

Understanding what the data does **not** show is as important as understanding what it does:

**Mortgage-only transactions are excluded:** If a property transfers between related parties at below market value (e.g. as a gift to a family member), the full consideration may not be reflected.

**New build prices include incentives:** New build prices can be inflated or deflated by developer incentives, cashback, furniture packs, stamp duty paid, that are not reflected in the headline price. Resale comparisons with new builds should be treated with caution.

**Dates are completion dates, not offer dates:** A sale registered in June may have had its price agreed in February. In a rising or falling market, the registered price may not reflect current conditions.

**No deregistered transactions:** If a sale is subsequently voided or rescinded, HMLR may remove it, but this is unusual.

**No condition information:** The sold price does not reflect the condition of the property at the time of sale. A distressed sale at a discount or a sale following major refurbishment will both appear as a simple price and date.

How to Use Sold Prices When Buying

**Compare like-for-like:** Focus on similar property types, tenure, and size within the same street or postcode. A semi-detached freehold is not directly comparable to a leasehold flat.

**Account for market movements:** Sold prices from 2–3 years ago may need adjusting for price inflation or deflation in the local market. Rightmove and Zoopla publish local market indices that help contextualise historical transactions.

**Multiple transactions on the same property:** If a property has sold several times in a short period at significantly varying prices, this warrants investigation, it may indicate past condition issues, development work, or structural problems.

Property Passport UK displays the full HM Land Registry transaction history for any property alongside EPC ratings and title information, helping buyers build an accurate picture of a property's history before making an offer.