Where does hop’s data come from?

Last updated: 8 September 2026

hop takes property information from the organisations that hold it.  Title from HM Land Registry, local authority records from the council, environmental and flood data from the statutory registers, and utilities information from the relevant providers.  Nothing is scraped from a portal, inferred from a similar property, or accepted from a seller and then presented as verified.  Every item carries a record of where it came from and when.

The sources

HM Land Registry. Title deeds, the register entries and the title plan.  hop is an HM Land Registry pilot partner, which is a working relationship rather than a badge.

Local authorities. Local authority records covering planning history, building control, highways and land charges.  This is the slowest and most fragmented part of the picture in the UK, which is why government is putting money into digitising it and moving land charges into a central register held by HM Land Registry.

Environmental and risk registers. Flood, radon, ground stability and contaminated land, drawn from the statutory sources rather than from a general risk model.

Utilities and drainage. Water and drainage information from the relevant providers.

The seller. Some things only the owner knows.  Disputes with neighbours, works carried out, what is included in the sale.  These are captured on the Law Society forms and are clearly identified as seller declared, because that is what they are.

Why the source matters more than the accuracy claim

Anyone can say their data is verified.  The question that decides whether a conveyancer can rely on it is narrower: verified against what, and by whom.

Government has now taken a position on this.  Its forthcoming guidance will state that information should be gathered from the organisations which own the data or from the homeowner directly, and it gives title as the example, saying it should only be obtained from HM Land Registry.  The reform roadmap goes further, committing to legislate for a framework that establishes rules on liability and ensures those using property data are aware of its origin.

When government consulted on how to make material information accurate, the most common answer from respondents was that guidance should require trusted information to be used, or proof of source to be provided.  Nearly half of all responses said so.

What hop does not do

It does not take property attributes from portal listings, which are marketing copy rather than a record.

It does not infer a value for one property from another that looks similar.

And it does not take a seller’s answer and present it as though it came from a register.  Seller declared information is useful and necessary.  It is simply a different kind of information from a title entry, and the two should never be shown as if they were the same thing.

The credentials, and what they actually mean

hop holds three positions that bear on data, and it is worth being precise about what each one is.

The HM Land Registry pilot partnership is a working relationship on accessing and using registry data.  The Law Society licence covers the forms and data standards hop outputs into, which is why a conveyancer receives something they already recognise rather than a bespoke report.  Membership of the Residential Logbook Association means hop is built to the logbook standards the sector is developing, and the roadmap points to the RLBA’s work on accessing HM Land Registry data within logbooks.

None of those makes the data correct on its own.  What they do is make its origin checkable, which is the part that matters when someone asks where a figure came from.

Frequently asked questions

Where does hop get its property data?

From the organisations that hold it: HM Land Registry for title, local authorities for planning, building control and land charges, the statutory environmental registers for risk data, and the relevant providers for water and drainage.  Seller declared information is captured separately on Law Society forms and labelled as such.

Is hop’s data verified?

Each item is taken from source and carries a record of that source and the date it was obtained, so a conveyancer can check the origin rather than take the description on trust.

Does hop use portal listings or estimates?

No.  Property attributes are not taken from listings and values are not inferred from comparable properties.

Is hop connected to HM Land Registry?

hop is an HM Land Registry pilot partner.  Title information is obtained from the registry rather than from secondary copies.

Check it on a property you know

The fastest way to judge a data source is to run it on a property whose history you already know and see whether it matches.

Snapshots run from an agent account, which we set up for your branch.  Get in touch and we will have you running your first Snapshot on a live valuation, or read more about hop Snapshots first.

This article is general information and is not legal advice.