UPRNs are now ‘baked in’ to help streamline conveyancing

The form is used by conveyancing professionals to help speed up property transactions and contains essential information about a property to ensure that it is ready for market and ready for sale. The BASPI has been developed by a working group of the Home Buyers and Selling Group (HBSG).

The form ensures certainty of information about a property and has been developed to be a single source of truth containing all the information required when a property is being marketed for sale and then purchased. As it is part of the legal process for selling a property, it also forms part of the contract for sale.

For the first time, the form includes the requirement to include a Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) alongside the address of the property. UPRNs are assigned to each addressable location in the UK. As a unique identifier, that UPRN is associated with that location for its entire lifecycle. This means information about those locations can be identified, linked, shared, managed, and maintained with absolute confidence – and with more efficiency than might be otherwise achievable.

In many ways, UPRNs might be compared to a bank account number or car number plate. Crucially, UPRNs are machine-readable, which means exchanging data becomes much easier, and they are sector-agnostic – it’s the same reference format, whether you’re working in property, government, finance, retail, health or utilities.

UPRNs are the product of the Street Naming and Numbering processes that take place under the remit of the UK’s local authorities. This leads to a continuous feed of data involving over 20 million changes per year into GeoPlace. GeoPlace then validates, links, and integrates data from all the 528 organisations supplying data, often daily, to ensure the integrity of that data.

Using UPRNs enables people to be absolutely confident that they are dealing with exactly the same piece of land or property. By embedding UPRNs in their processes, linking and enhancing data becomes much easier and more efficient. UPRNs now underpin a wide range of government processes, including the census, registering to vote, processes at the DVLA such as vehicle logbooks, removal of the tax disc system and the paper counterpart driving license, roll out of gigabit-capable broadband and the National Fraud Initiative.

Beth Rudolf, Director of Delivery at the Conveyancing Association, commented:

“The Conveyancing Association is working with conveyancers and lenders to create a Property Data Trust Framework. The Property Data Trust Framework also requires authentication of the provenance of the data - and attaching it to the UPRN - will ensure the homeowner and stakeholders involved in the process can access the data they need when they need it whether that is on sale, re-mortgage, planning application or even retrofit.”

Beth continued: “Attaching the UPRN will ensure the technology providers can create FAIR data systems and identify which property the data relates to, which is not always easy when just relying on the Title Number or the property address. After all flat A could also be called ground floor flat. The UPRN gets rid of all the uncertainty. It can also link to the ‘parent’ UPRN where the property is leasehold which of course is key when trying to establish whether a Fire Safety inspection has been completed on the entire building and therefore there is an EWS1 for the flat you are dealing with.”

Nick Chapallaz, Managing Director of GeoPlace commented:

“At last year’s GeoPlace annual conference, the Housing Minister, the Rt Hon Christopher Pincher MP called for UPRNs to be ‘baked in’ to streamline house buying and selling. The Minister emphasised that many barriers to progress in the housing sector could be removed through the ubiquitous adoption of UPRNs, as they bring simplicity and agility to all processes. UPRNs make it easier to share data, make informed decisions, and put everyone ‘on the same digital page.”

Nick continued: "We are delighted to see the progress made over the last year and the inclusion of UPRNs within the BAPSI form. We believe that this will provide the certainty that the conveyancing sector needs in identifying the correct property for sale and purchase. We have recently become a member of the Conveyancing Information Executive and look forward to working closely with its members, as well as the wider property market to provide advice and expertise on the utilising UPRNs.”

Nick added: “We will continue to explore the potential of UPRNs to speed up conveyancing at our annual conference this year during a session on ‘Improving the property chain’ which includes speakers from Nationwide, Zoopla and HM Land Registry”.

UPRNs are available to the market in the form of the well-known OS AddressBase products, and as Open Data in the form of OS Open UPRN. GeoPlace provides a non-commercial service, FindMyAddress, which enables users to look up the UPRN for a property.

Notes:

In September last year, GeoPlace hosted a webinar with experts across the property sector including:

• Nick Chapallaz, Managing Director, GeoPlace
• Richard Duffield, Head of Customer Insights, GeoPlace
• Theresa Wallace, Chair, The Lettings Industry Council (TLIC)
• Andrew Bulmer, CEO, Institute of Residential Property Management (IRPM)
• Lawrence Hopper, Deputy Director, Digital Policy, Ministry of Housing, Local Government and Communities (MHCLG)
• Andrew Knight, Data & Tech, Thought Leadership & Analysis, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)

A report from the webinar is available at https://www.geoplace.co.uk/blog/2021/uprns-webinar-golden-key-property-sector.

A report from last year’s ‘Revolutionising the housing, planning and property sector’ session at the GeoPlace annual conference, which included the Housing Minister’s presentation is available at https://www.geoplace.co.uk/case-studies/geoplace-conference-2021-revolutionising-the-housing-and-property-sector.

GeoPlace has signposted resources for the property sector on its website at https://www.geoplace.co.uk/addresses-streets/data-in-use/uprn-and-property.

Information about the year’s GeoPlace conference is available at https://www.geoplace.co.uk/news-events/events/conference.

GeoPlace LLP is a public sector limited liability partnership between the Local Government Association (LGA) and Ordnance Survey (OS).

GeoPlace is a world class expert in address and street information management, working internationally as well as in the UK to help our partners and customers maximise the value of their spatial information for better decision making.

GeoPlace maintains a national infrastructure that supports the address and street information needs of the public and private sectors. Its work relies heavily on close working relationships with every local authority in England and Wales. This relationship has been developed over 15 years, to build the National Address Gazetteer infrastructure and National Street Gazetteer. OS develops the range of AddressBase products from the National Address Gazetteer and OS MasterMap Highways Network from the NSG. Both datasets underpin efficient and effective services, bringing direct service delivery benefits to users.

These unique reference numbers link datasets together and share information with other organisations who also use them. They provide a comprehensive, complete and consistent identifier throughout a property's life cycle – from planning permission or street naming through to demolition.