When did Land Registry start recording sold prices?

Last updated 14 August 2026·Applies to England & Wales

HM Land Registry's Price Paid Data begins in January 1995. That single date explains a large share of the "no sold price found" results people hit — and it is not the same thing as when the register itself began.

The short answer

Price Paid Data covers completed, registered residential sales in England and Wales from 1 January 1995 onwards. Anything that changed hands before then is outside the dataset. If a property last sold in 1993, there is no price paid record to find, and no amount of searching a different tool will produce one.

1995 is the data start, not the register start. Land registration in England and Wales is far older, and compulsory registration was phased in area by area across the twentieth century. What began in 1995 is the systematic publication of prices — which is why a property can be registered, with a title you can inspect, and still have no published sold price.

Why long-held homes look like gaps

Average ownership tenure in the UK runs to many years, and a meaningful share of homes have not changed hands since before 1995. For those, an empty sold-price history is the correct answer rather than a missing one. It usually indicates long ownership — often the least remarkable thing a property record can tell you.

Treat a pre-1995 gap as context, not as a warning sign. A property with no recorded sale is not a property with something to hide; it is most often a property someone has lived in for a long time.

What you can still find out

  1. The title register. Registered titles can record a price paid on earlier transactions even where the open dataset does not carry one, and they identify the current owner. See how to find out who owns a property.
  2. The first post-1995 sale. If the property sold at any point from 1995 onwards, that transaction is in the dataset even if earlier ones are not.
  3. Neighbouring sales. Where the property itself has no history, sales of comparable homes on the same street carry most of the same signal.
  4. Ask the seller. For a pre-1995 purchase, the owner or their conveyancer is the only reliable route to the original figure.

Other reasons a record can be missing

A pre-1995 sale is one of several legitimate explanations. Transfers not involving monetary consideration, right-to-buy discounts, leases of seven years or less, and sales outside England and Wales are all absent for their own reasons. Our guide to why a sold price isn't on Land Registry covers the full set, and how long updates take covers the case where the sale is simply too recent.

Frequently asked questions

What year does Land Registry sold price data start?

January 1995. Completed, registered residential sales in England and Wales from that point onwards are included in Price Paid Data.

Can I find out what a house sold for before 1995?

Not from the open Price Paid dataset. The title register may record a price on an earlier transaction, and the seller or their conveyancer may hold the figure, but there is no published source covering pre-1995 sales generally.

Does the same start date apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland?

No. Scotland and Northern Ireland maintain separate registers with their own coverage and publication arrangements. See our guide to sold house prices in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Sources