Methodology

How Home-Checker reports are built

This page explains where every module in a Home-Checker report comes from, what it does, and — crucially — what it does not replace. It is written for buyers and for the conveyancers, brokers and surveyors they share the report with.

Home-Checker is a reporting product. We aggregate publicly available UK data (Environment Agency, Police.uk, Ofsted, DEFRA, Land Registry, Ofcom, the Valuation Office Agency and others) and present it alongside AI-generated narrative commentary to make it readable. We do not commission new surveys, we do not create new data, and we do not provide professional advice.

Important: A Home-Checker report is general property and area intelligence. It is not a substitute for professional conveyancing searches, a property survey, an insurance quotation, financial advice or legal counsel. See the full disclaimer and the data-sources page for the legal detail.

The nine modules

Every report is assembled from the same nine modules. Each links to its own deep-dive methodology page where we walk through the exact API endpoints, query parameters and edge cases.

Flood risk

Flood-risk indicators for the property's postcode, drawn from the Environment Agency's national flood-risk datasets and live flood-warning feed.

Data source: Environment Agency Flood Monitoring API and Risk of Flooding from Rivers and Sea (RoFRS) dataset.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.

What we do

Look up the property's location in the Environment Agency's published flood zones (Zone 1, 2, 3a, 3b).
Surface any active flood warnings or alerts for the wider area at the time the report is generated.
Summarise the headline risk in plain English for buyers and their advisers.

What we don't do

Replace a site-specific Flood Risk Assessment (FRA) carried out by a qualified consultant.
Account for surface-water (pluvial) or groundwater flooding in detail beyond what the EA publishes nationally.
Predict whether a particular insurer will offer cover, or at what premium.

Read the full flood risk methodology →

Crime

Recorded-crime statistics for the streets immediately around the property, from the Home Office's data.police.uk service.

Data source: data.police.uk Street-Level Crime API.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.

What we do

Pull the most recent published month of street-level crime within a fixed radius of the property's coordinates.
Group offences by category (anti-social behaviour, burglary, violent crime, vehicle crime, etc.).
Compare counts to a national reference where useful for context.

What we don't do

Replace a formal local authority or police background check on a specific address.
Identify victims, suspects, or any individual case detail — only aggregate counts.
Reflect crimes that have not yet been published; data.police.uk runs roughly one to two months behind real-time.

Read the full crime methodology →

Schools

The state and independent schools physically nearest the property, with their most recent published Ofsted inspection outcome.

Data source: Get Information About Schools (GIAS) and Ofsted Management Information, loaded into our database via ETL.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.

What we do

Find the closest schools to the property by straight-line distance using PostGIS.
Show school type, phase (primary, secondary, etc.), pupil numbers and Ofsted rating where published.
Link to the official GOV.UK school information page so buyers can verify.

What we don't do

Tell you whether your child will get a place — that is determined by the local authority's admissions process.
Reflect catchment-area boundaries, which change year to year and are set by each LA.
Capture private tutoring, SEND provision detail, or sixth-form-only options beyond what GIAS records.

Read the full schools methodology →

Air quality

Local air-quality readings derived from the European Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) ensemble forecast, served via the Open-Meteo Air Quality API.

Data source: Open-Meteo Air Quality API, serving the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) ensemble forecast on a ~11 km grid. CAMS itself assimilates UK reference-network data (DEFRA UK-AIR / AURN) among other inputs.
Licence: Open-Meteo terms of use; CAMS source data under the Copernicus licence.

What we do

Fetch the latest CAMS forecast values for the property's coordinates at report time.
Cover the headline pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, O3, SO2, CO) and the European Air Quality Index.
Show the WHO 2021 guideline for each pollutant alongside the reading, with the period it is averaged over.

What we don't do

Judge a reading against a WHO guideline — every WHO guideline is an average over 24 hours or longer, and our reading is one instantaneous hourly value.
Provide a doorstep-level air-quality measurement — the CAMS grid is approximately 11 km wide.
Read directly from a specific AURN, AQE or local-authority monitoring station.
Substitute for a clinical assessment if a household has specific respiratory health needs.

Read the full air quality methodology →

EPC (Energy Performance Certificate)

The most recent Energy Performance Certificate published for the property or, where unavailable, a snapshot of EPC ratings on the same street.

Data source: Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities EPC Register API.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.

What we do

Look up the property's most recent EPC by address where one exists.
Surface the headline rating, energy use, estimated bills and headline recommended improvements.
Fall back to nearby EPCs on the same street if no certificate exists for the exact address.

What we don't do

Guarantee an EPC exists or is current — many properties have lapsed or never-issued certificates.
Replace a fresh assessment by a qualified Domestic Energy Assessor (DEA), which is required when selling or letting.
Predict actual running costs for your household, which depend heavily on occupancy and behaviour.

Read the full epc (energy performance certificate) methodology →

Climate

Long-run temperature, rainfall and sunshine averages for the property's location, plus directional climate-change context.

Data source: Open-Meteo historical and climate API.
Licence: Open-Meteo commercial licence.

What we do

Pull long-run climatology (typical monthly temperatures, rainfall and sunshine) for the property's coordinates.
Provide a high-level view of how the local climate is trending.
Translate the numbers into plain-English commentary for buyers.

What we don't do

Forecast specific weather events.
Constitute a property-level climate-resilience assessment.
Replace specialist climate-risk modelling required for commercial lending or insurance underwriting.

Read the full climate methodology →

Amenities & connectivity

Nearby amenities (shops, GPs, transport, parks) and broadband availability for the property.

Data source: OpenStreetMap UK extract (amenities) and Ofcom Connected Nations (broadband), loaded via ETL.
Licence: OpenStreetMap data under the Open Database Licence (ODbL) © OpenStreetMap contributors. Ofcom data under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

What we do

Show the closest amenities by category within walking and short-driving distance.
Surface the broadband speeds reported by operators for the postcode (average and maximum download, ultrafast availability).
Indicate where the nearest train station, GP and supermarket sit relative to the property.

What we don't do

Guarantee an amenity is open, accepting new patients, or accurately tagged in OpenStreetMap.
Test the broadband line at the address — Ofcom figures are operator-reported, not measured.
Capture private membership facilities or anything OSM contributors have not mapped.

Read the full amenities & connectivity methodology →

Property market

Sold-price history for the postcode and the council-tax band landscape for the local authority.

Data source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data and Valuation Office Agency Council Tax bands, loaded via ETL.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.

What we do

Show recent sold prices on the postcode where Land Registry has published them.
Summarise the typical council-tax band distribution for the local authority.
Provide a high-level view of how the local market has moved in recent years.

What we don't do

Provide a property valuation — a Red Book or RICS-style valuation must come from a qualified surveyor.
Reflect off-market or very recent transactions that have not yet been registered.
Tell you what a specific property will sell for; sold prices on a postcode can vary significantly by property.

Read the full property market methodology →

Environmental risk

Headline environmental-risk indicators for the property's location, drawn from publicly available datasets where these are loaded for the report area.

Data source: Public environmental datasets where loaded (e.g. designated sites, surface-water flooding). Coverage is improving over time.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0 where applicable.

What we do

Surface the publicly available environmental indicators we have loaded for the property's area.
Hide the section entirely where we do not yet hold the underlying data, rather than guess.
Be explicit about what is and is not included.

What we don't do

Replace the regulated environmental search a conveyancer commissions as part of the standard search pack on completion of contracts.
Identify contaminated land, radon, or historical industrial use to a regulatory standard.
Constitute professional environmental due diligence for lenders or insurers.

Read the full environmental risk methodology →

What a Home-Checker report is not a substitute for

We are deliberately specific about this so buyers, sellers, conveyancers and brokers know where the report ends and where regulated professional work begins. Home-Checker is a starting point for due diligence; it is not a replacement for any of the following:

A regulated environmental search commissioned by your conveyancer as part of the standard search pack. These are the searches a lender will look for and which carry professional indemnity.
A site-specific Flood Risk Assessment (FRA) by a qualified flood consultant. Required for planning applications in higher-risk zones and for informed insurance decisions on at-risk properties.
A surveyor's structural report (RICS Home Survey Level 2 or Level 3, or a building survey). Only a surveyor inspecting the property can identify defects.
A professional valuation (RICS Red Book or equivalent). Sold-price history is not a valuation.
Full Local Authority searches (LLC1 and CON29) provided by your conveyancer. These cover planning, building control, contaminated land notices, highways and many other items not in our report.
Drainage and water searches (e.g. CON29DW) from the local water and sewerage company.
Mining searches (e.g. Coal Authority CON29M) where the property is in a former or current mining area.
An insurance quotation. Insurers use their own data and underwriting rules. Home-Checker cannot tell you whether a property is insurable or at what premium.
Financial, legal or tax advice. FloodWatch Ltd is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and does not provide regulated advice of any kind.

For the binding wording, see our disclaimer and terms of service. For attribution and licensing of every dataset, see the data sources page.

A note on AI-generated narrative

Each module includes a short plain-English narrative produced by Anthropic's Claude large-language-model API. The narrative is generated only from the structured data we have already retrieved from the underlying source — it does not introduce external facts or opinions, and it is bounded by guardrails that suppress fabrication.

Because LLMs can still occasionally produce errors, the underlying numbers and the primary-source links are always shown alongside the narrative. If the narrative ever appears to disagree with the underlying figures, the figures are authoritative.