Every home in England and Wales should have a complete, trustworthy digital record.
We are building towards a future where the important facts about any property are always up to date, always accessible, and always in one place. Not locked away in filing cabinets, lost in email chains, or scattered across a dozen different government websites. Instead, gathered together in a single record that stays with the property for as long as it stands.
The big picture
There are over 19.35 million homes in England and Wales. Each one has a story: when it was built, who has owned it, what work has been done to it, how energy efficient it is, and whether it is at risk of flooding. Right now, that story is scattered across multiple government registers, solicitors' files, and the memories of previous owners. Much of it gets lost every time a property changes hands.
Our vision is to change that. We want every one of those 19.35 million homes to have a single digital record, a Property Passport, that brings all of that information together. Each time a new energy certificate is issued, it gets added. Each time the property is sold, the sale price goes on the record. When an owner uploads their boiler warranty or their building regulations certificate, those documents stay with the property even after they move out.
Over time, these records get richer and more useful. A property that has been on the system for five years will have a detailed history of energy ratings, sale prices, uploaded documents, and improvements. A buyer looking at that property can see its full story, not just a snapshot taken by an estate agent last Tuesday.
Why the UK property market needs this
Buying or selling a home in England and Wales takes a long time. On average, it is over 20 weeks from accepting an offer to picking up the keys. Roughly one in three sales fall through before they complete. That is an enormous amount of wasted time, money, and stress for everyone involved.
A surprising amount of this delay comes down to information. Solicitors and conveyancers spend weeks chasing paperwork: energy certificates that are already on the national register, title details that HM Land Registry already holds, flood risk reports that the Environment Agency already publishes. The information exists, but it is in different places, in different formats, and nobody has brought it together.
Meanwhile, buyers are making decisions based on incomplete information. They might not discover that a property is in a flood zone until their solicitor orders a search weeks after they made an offer. They might not realise that the energy rating is poor until they get the EPC through, which might only happen late in the process.
If all of this information was already assembled in one place, clearly presented, properly sourced, and available to everyone, then buyers could make better decisions earlier, solicitors could work faster, and fewer sales would fall through because of late surprises.
Four ideas that guide everything we build
These are the principles behind every decision we make about what to build and how to build it.
The record belongs to the property, not the person
When you sell your car, the MOT history stays with the car. It does not disappear when you hand over the keys. We think property should work the same way. A Property Passport belongs to the home. It accumulates energy certificates, sale prices, documents, and improvement records over time, and all of that transfers to the next owner when the home is sold. No more starting from scratch.
Built to last
Every property in the UK has a unique reference number assigned by Ordnance Survey, called a UPRN. Think of it like a National Insurance number, but for buildings. We link every Property Passport to its UPRN, which means the record stays connected to the right property no matter what, even if the address format changes, the street gets renamed, or the postcode is updated. The record is permanent.
Making buying and selling faster
Right now, when you buy a home, your solicitor spends weeks gathering information from various government registers. Most of this information is publicly available, but it just takes time to collect. If a Property Passport already has this information assembled and clearly sourced, your solicitor can get straight to work. That saves time, reduces costs, and means fewer delays waiting for paperwork to arrive.
Helping the country meet its energy targets
Every Property Passport includes the home's energy performance data: how efficient it is, what kind of heating it uses, how well insulated it is, and what it costs to run. When you can see this for millions of homes at once, it becomes much easier to understand where the biggest problems are and where investment in better insulation or heating would make the most difference. This helps homeowners, landlords, and the government work towards better, warmer, cheaper-to-run homes.
What the future looks like
We are building this in stages. Here is where we are now, and where we are heading.
Today: the foundation is in place
You can already search for any property in England and Wales and see its public record for free. This includes the energy rating, past sale prices from HM Land Registry, property type, flood risk information, and map location. If you are a homeowner, you can claim your property and start adding your own documents: warranties, certificates, surveys, improvement records. Professionals like estate agents, solicitors, and surveyors can access structured data through dedicated dashboards.
Next: richer records and professional tools
We are working on adding more data sources, including planning application history, local authority information, listed building status, and conservation area data. We are also building tools that let estate agents, conveyancers, and surveyors connect their existing software directly to Property Passport UK, so they can pull verified property data into the systems they already use without having to copy and paste anything.
Long term: the standard record for every UK property
Our ultimate goal is for a Property Passport to be the accepted standard, the one place where all the important facts about a home are gathered together. When a new EPC is issued, it automatically appears on the Property Passport. When a property is sold, the transaction is recorded. When a local authority grants planning permission, it is linked to the right property. We want this to be as natural and expected as a car having an MOT history. Something that everyone uses, everyone trusts, and nobody has to think twice about.
What this means for you
You will be able to see a complete, verified record of any property before you even book a viewing. Not just the estate agent's description, but the actual facts, sourced from government registers and from previous owners who have contributed to the record. You will know the energy rating, the flood risk, the sale history, and what documents are on file. This helps you make a more informed decision, and it means fewer nasty surprises later in the process.
You will have a secure, permanent place to store the important documents about your property. No more rummaging through drawers for the boiler warranty or trying to remember which solicitor has the building regulations certificate. When you come to sell, everything is already there, which makes the process faster and gives buyers confidence in what they are purchasing.
You will be able to check the energy efficiency of a property before you sign a lease, which directly affects how much you will spend on heating. You can see the flood risk, the property type, and whether the landlord has uploaded relevant safety certificates. This gives you more information to make the right choice, and it holds landlords to a higher standard of transparency.
Whether you are an estate agent, a solicitor, a conveyancer, or a surveyor, you will spend less time chasing basic information and more time doing the work that actually requires your expertise. You get verified property data, clearly sourced and structured, available through your existing tools. That means faster transactions, fewer delays, and less back-and-forth with clients and other professionals.
How we get there
We are realistic about this. Building a comprehensive record for every property in England and Wales does not happen overnight. It happens one property at a time, one data source at a time, one owner at a time.
The government data is already flowing. We have energy ratings, sale prices, flood risk, and mapping data for millions of properties. The next layer comes from homeowners who claim their property and start adding their own documents. The layer after that comes from professionals who use the platform as part of their daily work.
Each layer makes the record more complete and more useful. And because the record belongs to the property, everything that is added today benefits every future owner, buyer, and tenant who looks at that property tomorrow.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the long-term vision for Property Passport UK?
- We want every property in England and Wales, all 19.35 million of them, to have a single, verified digital record that stays with it forever. Think of it like an MOT history for your car, but for your home. It keeps track of energy certificates, sale prices, documents, improvements, and more. When the house is sold, the record passes to the next owner automatically. Over time, this makes buying, selling, and managing property faster, safer, and more transparent for everyone.
- What does "property-centric" mean?
- It means the record belongs to the property, not to any particular person. Right now, when you sell a home, all the information you have gathered (certificates, warranties, planning documents, survey reports) typically gets lost or stays in your email inbox. The next owner has to start from scratch. A property-centric record fixes this. The Property Passport stays with the home, and every owner who comes along adds to it. Over decades, a property builds up a rich, useful history.
- How will Property Passport UK make buying a home faster?
- A big chunk of the time it takes to buy a property is spent by solicitors and conveyancers chasing basic information: the energy rating, whether it is freehold or leasehold, past sale prices, flood risk. This information already exists in government databases, but it has to be gathered piece by piece. When it is already assembled in a Property Passport, with clear sources, professionals can access it straight away. That means fewer delays, fewer information requests, and a faster process from offer to completion.
- Will Property Passport UK work with government systems?
- We already use data from HM Land Registry, the EPC Register, Ordnance Survey, and the Environment Agency. In the future, we want Property Passports to become a standard link between these different government systems, so when a new EPC is issued or a property is sold, the record updates automatically. This would mean the information is always current and professionals can access everything through one place rather than searching multiple websites.
- How does this help with climate and energy targets?
- Every Property Passport includes the energy performance data for that home: the EPC rating, the type of heating, the insulation levels, and the estimated energy costs. When you have this information for millions of properties in one place, it becomes much easier to understand which homes need upgrading, which areas have the worst energy efficiency, and where investment would have the biggest impact. This helps homeowners plan improvements and helps policymakers target energy efficiency programmes where they are needed most.
- Is any of this going to cost me money?
- Looking up a property and viewing its record is free and always will be. If you are a homeowner, claiming your property and adding your own documents is also free. We believe that basic property information should be accessible to everyone. In the future, we may offer premium features for professionals, like bulk data access or integration with professional software, but the core public record will remain free.