HM Land Registry (HMLR) has conceded that unique property reference numbers (UPRNs) cannot be used as a “unique identifier” for addresses due to the complexity involved with titles and addresses.
Speaking at the recent GeoPlace conference, Andrew Trigg, HMLR’s interim director of digital, data and technology, said they use UPRNs in their data as much as they can “because of its utility elsewhere”, though not as a unique identifier for addresses.
Trigg went on to note that titles are separate from addresses and often do not relate to “addressable” property. One example of where an issue arises is with housing developments, wherein “often you will want to register the property before it has an address”. He continued:
“There are different situations where the UPRN and address are not directly relatable to the property. It means we cannot use UPRNs as our unique identifier but it does cover about 82% of our titles. UPRNs are useful […] but we have to have our own internal address mechanism.”
Head of property risk at Nationwide Building Society Robert Stevens noted that UPRNs are the “central string” for its data, though added that “we have to make sure the quality of the data is right […] I have seen instances of multiple addresses linked to a UPRN”.
The government endorsed UPRNs at GeoPlace last July, with former Housing Minister Chris Pincher commenting that “information like the number of previous owners, boundaries – that can all be shared digitally at the touch of a key helping to speed the whole house buying process along”. Pincher added:
“With the challenges of the end of the present [Help to Buy] scheme, with the challenges of the pandemic, the conveyancing process ballooned for many, many people. Having the UPRN baked into the system, had we been able to take advantage of them more rapidly, would have helped to reduce that challenge. Crucially, they would also allow buyers to be privy to all relevant information before they purchase a property.”
UPRNs were also announced as a requirement of the new BASPI (Buying and Selling Property Information) form in April.
