Undercount of transactions from Land Registry

There’s no question that the last few months have seen extraordinary levels of activity in the housing market. In June, the RICS reported the highest level of transactions per surveyor (22.8) since July 2014.

However, a lot of what you see reported at the moment is likely to be undercounting the number of transactions because of delays at the Land Registry.

Read on

It is important that everything you see on Dataloft Inform presents the most realistic view of the market and so we have made some adjustments to the transaction charts during this extraordinary period.

At Dataloft, we take responsibility for transparency and accuracy in all our market analysis. This note explains the adjustments we have made and why they have been necessary. As soon as Land Registry gets back to normal, we will review these adjustments. In the meantime, you can be confident that our analysis will continue to present a realistic view of your local market, despite the difficulties at Land Registry.

Delay in Land Registry registrations

The transactions data on the local pages of Dataloft Inform is fed by the Price Paid dataset, published by the Land Registry. This is updated every month and shows the price paid for residential transactions registered at the Land Registry. It relies on returns from solicitors and registration at the Land Registry.

There has always been a slight lag in registrations at the Land Registry. However, the Pandemic has exacerbated the lag, resulting in a severe backlog. This means that completed sales are missing from the most recent monthly data feeds. The figures will adjust retrospectively once more data is released, but in the meantime there is significant under-counting of transactions. For Dataloft Inform, it means the charts showing ‘change in transactions over the last year’, might appear to show a fall in activity, where there has been an increase – so we devised a set of workarounds. 

These steps will ensure that you get a more complete view of your market and can confidently use all the downloadable content. 

Adjustments made on Dataloft Inform

1  Local sales page > transactions
We added the chart ‘Transactions by month – adjusted’

This shows our estimate of where transactions will be once Land Registry clears the backlog. The adjustment is based on historic trends at local level (HMRC and Land Registry) combined with recent trends at the national level. (HMRC). The chart and estimates will be revised each month as new data becomes available. 

We have made adjustments for the last five months. We feel that this represents the period of greatest misalignment. Any sales added in the prior period will be of minimal impact. 

It is likely that the majority of any ‘missing sales’ in earlier periods are likely to be new build. This is because of an even greater delay in new build registrations which have to be first registered at the Land Registry before the price paid information can be recorded. 

2  Region view page
We have amended the chart ‘Annual % change in average prices and transactions’

This now shows figures over a rolling 12 month period rather than for each individual month. Please note that the most recent months will be subject to upward revision as new data is published.

3 Downloads > All market reports
We have made some changes to the commentary

We have excluded reference to transactions and percentage change over the past 12 months. We have replaced this with more information on prices.

4  Downloads > Regional Market report
The first chart has been revised

Now shows a rolling 12 month change and the transactions line has been removed.

5 Local insight web page (also known as the widget)
We have replaced ‘Change in sales’ with ‘% of sales which were houses’