About HouseCheckup
Know what you're buying before you make an offer.
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HouseCheckup draws on 65+ official sources to build one report on the exact address you're considering, anywhere in England, Wales and Scotland. It tells you what the official records show about flood risk, the ground, planning designations, the neighbourhood and more, in plain English, and what to ask before you commit.
Reports start at £9.99, with the same prices wherever you are buying. HouseCheckup is an independent business run by its founder, Bertram Sargla. Who runs HouseCheckup
Why check with us before you offer
The information that changes a decision is usually public. It is spread across dozens of bodies, each with its own map and its own jargon. We bring it together for one address and tell you what it means.
Built for before you offer
Your solicitor's searches are ordered after an offer is accepted. A HouseCheckup report is meant to be read first, while walking away still costs you nothing.
England, Wales and Scotland
Scottish addresses are checked against Scottish sources (SEPA flood maps, Historic Environment Scotland designations and Scottish Government data) at the same price as England and Wales. Anything no open source can answer for your nation is listed before you pay.
Gaps named, never scored as a pass
Not every official source covers every nation. When a check can't run at your address, the report says which one and why, and leaves it out of the score rather than counting it as clear.
Every finding has a source
Each section names the body that published the data, so you can check it yourself or hand it straight to your solicitor or surveyor.
Plain English, with the next question
Flood zones, ground classes and planning designations are explained as what they mean for this house, with the questions worth putting to the agent, the seller and your solicitor.
One payment, follow-up included
Pay once for the address you're interested in. No subscription, no account. Your report is emailed within 24 hours, usually faster. Reply to your report and we will explain any finding, show you the source, or dig further. Free, for as long as you need.
Where the data comes from
Most of a HouseCheckup report comes from official public bodies that publish open data, usually under the Open Government Licence. A few sections use other open sources: OpenStreetMap for nearby amenities, Wikipedia for a short area summary and the European Commission's PVGIS service for solar potential. Every section of the report names where its data came from, and we don't buy data from brokers.
We cover England, Wales and Scotland. Coverage is not identical in each: some official sources publish for one nation and not another, so every report names the checks it could not run at your address rather than scoring them as a pass.
Across England, Wales and Scotland
British Geological Survey
Ground stability, landslides, shrink-swell clay and the geology under the address
Mining Remediation Authority (formerly the Coal Authority)
Coal mining risk areas and recorded mine workings
UK Health Security Agency and BGS
The indicative atlas of radon
Defra UK-AIR
Modelled annual air quality
OpenStreetMap
Nearby amenities and everyday services
England and Wales only
HM Land Registry
Sold prices on the street and tenure at the last sale
Energy Performance Certificate register
Energy rating, floor area and recommended improvements
data.police.uk
Street-level recorded crime
Valuation Office Agency
Council tax band mix for the area
England only
Environment Agency
Flood zones, surface-water risk and environmental permits
planning.data.gov.uk
Conservation areas, listed buildings and Article 4 areas
Department for Education and Ofsted
Nearby schools and their inspection grades
Wales only
Natural Resources Wales
Modelled flood risk and recorded flood extents
Scotland only
Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
River, coastal and surface-water flood maps, including a climate-change scenario, and environmental authorisations
Historic Environment Scotland
Listed buildings, scheduled monuments and conservation areas
Scottish Government
Green Belt, National Scenic Areas, tree preservation orders, noise management areas and nearby schools
Registers of Scotland
Neighbourhood-level sale statistics
These are the main sources a report uses. The wider catalogue we draw on is on our data sources page.
How the HouseCheckup Score works
The HouseCheckup Score is a weighted composite of 6 data factors. Each is individually scored 0-100, then weighted to produce the final score. Here is exactly how the weights are distributed.
The report covers a great deal more than this: schools, transport, broadband, planning, deprivation, noise and more all have their own sections. Those are reported but not scored. We only put weight on checks we can run consistently at every address, so the headline number stays comparable between properties. Where a check cannot be run at an address, it is excluded from the score and named, never counted as a pass.
| Factor | Weight | Data Points |
|---|---|---|
| Flood risk | 22% | Mapped flood screening at the postcode location; England uses surface water only, with different sources and mechanisms in Scotland and Wales. Source: Environment Agency / SEPA / NRW |
| Crime | 18% | Street-level crimes recorded within a mile over 24 months. Source: police.uk |
| Coal mining | 16% | Whether the address sits in a coal Development High or Low Risk Area. Source: Mining Remediation Authority |
| Subsidence | 16% | BGS GeoSure ground-hazard ratings for the surrounding area (shrink-swell clay, compressible ground, collapsible deposits, landslides, running sand, soluble rocks), led by the highest, plus the shrink-swell climate projection. Source: British Geological Survey |
| Radon | 14% | Radon potential class for the 1 km grid square. Source: UK Health Security Agency |
| Energy (EPC) | 14% | Current energy efficiency band from the property's certificate. Source: MHCLG EPC Register |
Weights are reviewed periodically against data quality and buyer feedback.
See how we work
Data access for businesses
We do not sell a self-serve developer product: there are no published endpoints, no keys to generate and no plan to sign up for. If you want programmatic or bulk access to HouseCheckup data for your own platform, it is arranged case by case. What it involves depends on which data you need and how much of it, so we would rather talk to you than publish a number we cannot stand behind.
Legal disclaimer
This information is for general guidance only. It is not a formal property search, survey, valuation or legal advice.
Reports contain public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, including HM Land Registry and Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right; data © Environment Agency, © Natural Resources Wales and © Scottish Environment Protection Agency; Historic Environment Scotland data © Historic Environment Scotland; Mining Remediation Authority data © Mining Remediation Authority; and British Geological Survey materials © UKRI. Amenity data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence. Each report carries the full attribution for every source it uses.
Always commission professional surveys and legal searches before purchasing property. HouseCheckup accepts no liability for decisions made based on data presented on this platform.
We comply with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. We do not process personal data beyond what is necessary for account management and payment processing. See our Privacy Policy for full details.