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 datasets behind our pages

Our area, postcode, comparison and ranking pages are built from the datasets below. For each one: who publishes it, the licence, how often it changes, how we compute every figure we show, and what it cannot tell you. For who makes these pages, see about Home-Checker.

HM Land Registry Price Paid Data
Environment Agency flood zones and surface water
Police recorded crime
Schools: Ofsted and Department for Education
Ofcom broadband coverage
Energy Performance Certificates (EPC)
English Indices of Deprivation (IMD)
Council tax
Planning applications and heritage designations
ONS earnings and affordability

HM Land Registry Price Paid Data

Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data: every residential sale in England and Wales registered with HM Land Registry, loaded from the published yearly files.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right. The address fields include Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey data and are not reused outside reports.
Update frequency: HM Land Registry publishes monthly, around the 20th, covering the previous month. We load the new records on the 1st of each month and refresh our pages on the 5th.
Where it appears: Area pages, postcode district pages, price rankings, comparison pages and reports.

How we compute it

Average and median sold price: all sales in the area's postcode districts over the most recent 12 months of published sales, with the sale-date range shown next to the figure.
Breakdown by property type (detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat, other), using the same 12-month window.
Price change: the median of the latest 12 months against the median of the 12 months before, for the area's main postcode district.
We hide the price change when either 12-month window has fewer than 3 sales, when the earlier window has less than half the sales of the later one, or when monthly sales volumes show a gap in the published data.
Rankings by price only include postcode districts with at least 3 sales in the window.

Limitations

Sales appear in the data weeks or months after completion, so the latest month is usually incomplete.
The data includes some sales that are not ordinary home purchases (for example repossessions and buy-to-let portfolio sales); we do not filter these out on area pages.
A median for a postcode district mixes very different streets and property types. It is not a valuation of any one home.
Transfers that are not sales at full market value, such as gifts and discounted right-to-buy purchases, are not in the data.

Environment Agency flood zones and surface water

Source: Environment Agency Flood Map for Planning (Rivers and Sea) flood zones 2 and 3, and the Environment Agency's national Risk of Flooding from Surface Water map (NaFRA2).
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0. © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right. All rights reserved.
Update frequency: The Environment Agency revises the flood zones from time to time (the current edition was revised in May 2026) and publishes surface-water updates about twice a year. We load each flood-zone release monthly and each surface-water release by hand when it is published.
Where it appears: Postcode district pages, flood rankings and reports.

How we compute it

Postcode district pages: the share of the land within 5 km of the district's centre that lies in Flood Zone 2 or 3, and the share in Flood Zone 3. We show the section only when some land is in Zone 2 or 3.
Flood rankings: the same land share, measured around each council area's centre.
Reports: whether the address falls in Flood Zone 2 or 3, and its surface-water band (high: more than 3.3% chance a year; medium: 1% to 3.3%; low: 0.1% to 1%).

Limitations

Flood zones describe an area of land, not whether a particular building will flood.
Flood zones ignore flood defences, and not every small watercourse is mapped.
The surface-water map is not designed for individual properties, and covers present-day risk only (no climate-change allowance).
Groundwater, sewer and drain flooding are not covered. England only.

Police recorded crime

Source: Home Office police recorded crime open data tables (by Community Safety Partnership), with ONS mid-year population estimates. Reports also use street-level crime from data.police.uk.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.
Update frequency: The Home Office tables are published once a year, about four months after the year ends on 31 March; each page shows the 12 months its figures cover. data.police.uk is updated monthly, and reports read it when they are generated.
Where it appears: Area pages, postcode district pages (for the district's council), crime rankings, comparison pages and reports.

How we compute it

Crime rate: total recorded offences in the council area per 1,000 residents, for one financial year. Where a Community Safety Partnership covers more than one council, offences and population are pooled across them.
Compared with England: the same rate for England as a whole. Within 5% of it counts as around the average; further away counts as above or below.
Reports: street-level crimes within about a mile of the address over the latest 12 published months, against the 12 months before, leaving out the most recent months while they are still being published.

Limitations

Area pages give one figure for a whole council area. Crime varies a lot from street to street.
Recorded crime counts only what is reported to and recorded by the police.
Street-level locations on data.police.uk are moved to a nearby point to protect privacy.
A rate per resident overstates crime in town centres and places with many visitors.

Schools: Ofsted and Department for Education

Source: Get Information About Schools (GIAS), the Department for Education's register of open schools in England, and Ofsted's monthly management information on inspection outcomes.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.
Update frequency: GIAS is published daily and Ofsted's management information monthly. We load both monthly.
Where it appears: Area pages, postcode district pages, school rankings, comparison pages and reports.

How we compute it

Each school's rating is its most recent published Ofsted overall judgement.
Town pages: open schools within 3 km of the town centre, by phase and rating.
Postcode district pages: up to 50 open schools within 5 km of the district's centre, grouped as Outstanding, Good, Requires improvement and Inadequate.
Council pages: open schools whose postcode is in the council's postcode districts.
Comparison pages: the number of Good or Outstanding schools within 3 km of each town centre.

Limitations

Distance is a straight line. It says nothing about catchment areas or the chance of a place, which each admissions authority decides.
Ofsted stopped giving state schools a single-word overall judgement in September 2024, so schools inspected since then may carry no overall rating.
Ratings can be several years old.
Independent schools are inspected by other bodies and may carry no Ofsted rating.

Ofcom broadband coverage

Source: Ofcom Connected Nations postcode-level fixed broadband coverage: the share of premises in each postcode that can get each broadband speed.
Licence: Contains Ofcom data © Ofcom. Reproduced under Ofcom's terms of use, which allow reuse with attribution in a context that is not misleading.
Update frequency: Ofcom publishes Connected Nations data in an annual report with interim updates. We check for a new release monthly.
Where it appears: Area pages, postcode district pages, broadband rankings, comparison pages and reports.

How we compute it

These are coverage figures: the percentage of premises that can get a service. They are not measured speeds, and we do not show speeds in Mbit/s from this data.
Superfast: 30 Mbit/s or more. Ultrafast: 300 Mbit/s or more. Gigabit-capable: 1 Gbit/s or more.
For an area, each figure is the simple average of the percentages for every postcode in its postcode districts, to one decimal place. Postcodes are not weighted by the number of premises.
Broadband rankings order postcode districts by gigabit-capable coverage, then ultrafast coverage.
Ofcom does not publish full-fibre coverage at postcode level. The figure our pages currently label as full fibre is Ofcom's coverage at 100 Mbit/s or more; we are correcting that label.

Limitations

Coverage means a service is available to the premises, not that anyone has bought it or what speed a line achieves.
Averaging postcodes gives a small rural postcode the same weight as a large block of flats.
Coverage changes quickly as networks are built; the latest Ofcom release can be months old.

Energy Performance Certificates (EPC)

Source: The domestic Energy Performance Certificate register, published by MHCLG through its EPC data service.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0. for non-address certificate data. Address fields are Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey copyright; we do not republish them.
Update frequency: New certificates are added to the register continuously. Reports read it when they are generated. The EPC figures on our area and postcode district pages are recomputed periodically, not monthly; those pages carry no separate EPC date.
Where it appears: Town pages, postcode district pages, EPC rankings and reports.

How we compute it

For each postcode district we count the domestic certificates whose postcode falls in that district, by energy band from A to G.
Rated C or better: certificates in bands A, B or C, as a percentage of all certificates, rounded to a whole number.
Most common band: the band with the most certificates.
EPC rankings only include postcode districts with at least 10 certificates, ordered by the share rated C or better.
Reports: the most recent certificate for the address, or nearby certificates on the same street when the address has none.

Limitations

A home gets a certificate only when it is built, sold, let or assessed, so many homes have none and others have several. We count every certificate lodged, so homes that changed hands often count more than once.
Older certificates describe the home at the time, not after later improvements.
Ratings are modelled from a survey, not measured energy use.

English Indices of Deprivation (IMD)

Source: English Indices of Deprivation 2025, published by MHCLG on 30 October 2025, at Lower-layer Super Output Area level (small areas of typically 1,000 to 3,000 residents, 2021 boundaries).
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.
Update frequency: MHCLG publishes a new edition every few years; the 2025 edition replaced the 2019 one. Our copy changes only when a new edition is published.
Where it appears: Reports only.

How we compute it

Reports find the small area the postcode sits in and show its Index of Multiple Deprivation decile (1 = most deprived 10% of areas in England, 10 = least deprived 10%) and the matching percentile.
We do not show deprivation on area, postcode district or ranking pages yet.

Limitations

A decile ranks areas against each other. It is not a measure of how well off any household is.
One small area can contain very different streets.
The 2025 edition draws on data from earlier years, so it describes the area as it was then.

Council tax

Source: MHCLG's annual statistics "Council Tax levels set by local authorities in England" (area council tax by band).
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.
Update frequency: Published once a year, in March, for the financial year starting on 1 April. We check for a new edition monthly; each page names the financial year it shows.
Where it appears: Area pages, council tax rankings, comparison pages and reports.

How we compute it

Band D charge: the whole annual bill for a Band D home in the council area, including the county, police and fire precepts, with parish precepts averaged across the area.
County pages: the lowest, highest and average Band D charge across the county's councils.
Council tax rankings order councils by their Band D charge.

Limitations

We do not know the band of any individual home. The Valuation Office Agency's online checker gives that.
Parish precepts differ within a council area, so the actual bill in a parish can be higher or lower than the averaged figure.
Discounts and reductions (for example the single-person discount) are not included.

Planning applications and heritage designations

Source: PlanIt (planit.org.uk), which collects applications from the public planning registers of most planning authorities in England; and planning.data.gov.uk (MHCLG) for conservation areas and listed buildings.
Licence: planning.data.gov.uk: Open Government Licence v3.0. PlanIt does not publish a formal open-data licence; applications are public records held by each council. We show summaries only and do not republish application documents.
Update frequency: Both are updated continuously as councils publish. Reports read them when they are generated.
Where it appears: Reports only.

How we compute it

Reports: planning applications within 1 km of the address over the last two years, summarised by type and decision.
Reports: whether the address lies in a conservation area, and listed buildings nearby.
We do not show planning activity on area, postcode district or ranking pages yet.

Limitations

PlanIt does not cover every planning authority, and councils publish in different formats and at different speeds.
An application is not a permission, and a permission is not always built.
Larger schemes such as national infrastructure are decided outside the local planning system.

ONS earnings and affordability

Source: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) and the ONS house price to workplace-based earnings ratio, by local authority.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.
Update frequency: ONS publishes both once a year. We do not load them yet.
Where it appears: Not used on our pages or in reports yet.

How we compute it

We do not currently compute any figure from ONS earnings data. No area, postcode district, ranking or comparison page, and no report, shows an earnings or price-to-earnings figure from us.
When we add it, each figure will be computed from the ONS tables for the council area, with its year shown, and this section will say how.

Limitations

Earnings data is by council area, and workplace-based figures describe people who work there, not people who live there.
A price-to-earnings ratio compares a typical price with a typical salary. It is not a measure of what any household can borrow.

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.