HouseCheckup vs Landmark RiskView 2026: Do You Need the £163 Search Yet?
Last updated:
Quick answer
Landmark Information Group is one of the two dominant UK environmental-search providers (the other is Groundsure), supplying conveyancer-grade property risk data used across the majority of England and Wales transactions. Its flagship residential product, RiskView Residential, is ordered by your solicitor or search provider during conveyancing — one provider lists it at £136 + VAT (≈£163 inc VAT) — and covers contaminated land, flood, ground stability, mining, radon, climate and planning with professional-consultant opinion. HouseCheckup Complete costs £24.99, is a self-serve report you buy yourself before you make an offer, and covers the same core environmental layers (flood, ground stability, radon, coal mining, planning) plus crime, schools, transport, EPC economics, an indicative value range and a single 0–100 score that Landmark does not include — but without Landmark's professional indemnity backing and lender acceptance. This guide answers the real question: "Do I need a Landmark search yet, and what does HouseCheckup cover for a fraction of the price?" Last updated: July 2026.
| Feature | HouseCheckup | Landmark (RiskView) |
|---|---|---|
| Who it's built for | Consumers — buyers and homeowners | Conveyancers & search providers (B2B) |
| How you buy it | Self-serve checkout — you run it yourself | Ordered by your solicitor / search provider |
| Price | £24.99 (Complete) | ~£136 + VAT (≈£163 inc VAT) — via search provider, varies |
| Flood risk | Yes — EA dataset + climate projections | Yes — consultant-reviewed flood assessment |
| Contaminated land | Yes — Environment Agency data | Yes — liability assessment + professional opinion |
| Ground stability | Yes — BGS GeoSure | Yes — ground stability & mining evaluation |
| Coal mining | Yes — Coal Authority | Yes — coal alert (+£1m indemnity) |
| Radon | Yes — UKHSA data | Yes — radon assessment |
| Climate change risk | Yes — EA climate projections | Yes — climate change risk assessment |
| Planning applications | Yes — 350+ LPAs | Yes — planning application analysis |
| Energy infrastructure proximity | No — not currently included | Yes — up to 4km radius |
| EPC / energy running costs | Yes — full breakdown + carbon | No — not an EPC report |
| Crime statistics | Yes — street-level + IMD | No |
| School quality | Yes — Ofsted ratings | No |
| Transport & broadband | Yes — Ofcom + NaPTAN | No |
| Property valuation | Sold-price comparables and an indicative value range | No |
| Investment analysis | Yes — 5 strategies (Investor Pro) | No |
| Composite property score | Yes — 0–100 HouseCheckup Score | No single consumer score |
| PI insurance / lender acceptance | No — informational only | Yes — conveyancer-grade, meets Law Society/SRA standards |
| Coverage | 29M+ properties (England & Wales) | England & Wales (claims 97%+ of transactions) |
| Delivery | Human-checked and emailed to you | Via conveyancer; same day to a few working days |
Our verdict
Landmark RiskView is the right tool once you are conveyancing: it is a lender-accepted, PI-backed, conveyancer-grade environmental search that your solicitor orders into your file at exchange, and its consultant-reviewed contaminated-land and climate assessments meet Law Society and SRA expectations. You almost never need to pay for RiskView before you have an accepted offer — and you cannot easily buy it yourself anyway, because Landmark sells to conveyancers and search providers, not to consumers. That is exactly the pre-offer gap HouseCheckup fills: a £24.99 report you run yourself on the property you are about to offer on, covering the same core environmental layers Landmark pulls (flood, ground stability, mining, radon, planning) from the same underlying official sources, plus the buyer context Landmark omits — crime, schools, transport, EPC running costs, an indicative value range and a 0–100 HouseCheckup Score. The cheapest complete due-diligence path for most UK buyers: run HouseCheckup at £24.99 to decide whether to offer, then let your solicitor bundle Landmark (or Groundsure) once the offer is accepted. Paying £163 for RiskView on a house you may not buy is the expensive way round; doing no pre-offer checks at all is more expensive still.
Run the report on the property you're actually looking at
One report, one price — £24.99 Complete, no subscription. 15+ checks on the exact address from official sources (HM Land Registry, Environment Agency, MHCLG EPC, police.uk and more), reviewed by a person before it's sent.
Try or search any UK postcode
£24.99 one-off · no subscription · Human-checked and emailed to you. See a sample report
What is Landmark and what does RiskView Residential include?
Landmark Information Group is a UK property, land and environmental data specialist, incorporated in 1994 and wholly owned by DMGT (Daily Mail and General Trust). Alongside Groundsure it is one of the two providers that dominate the UK's conveyancing environmental-search market; Landmark states it is involved in the majority of England and Wales property transactions. Both supply data under the framework of the Law Society's Climate Change Practice Note, which encourages property lawyers to obtain environmental due diligence on every transaction.
Landmark RiskView Residential (definition): Landmark's flagship residential environmental search, ordered by conveyancers and search providers rather than bought by consumers directly. It bundles contaminated-land liability (with a professional consultant opinion), flood, ground stability and mining, radon, climate-change risk, energy-infrastructure proximity (up to a 4km radius) and planning-application analysis into a single conveyancer-grade report. One search provider lists it at £136 + VAT (≈£163 inc VAT); pricing varies by provider.
By the numbers (Landmark RiskView vs HouseCheckup, 2026):
- RiskView Residential: ~£136 + VAT (≈£163 inc VAT), ordered via your solicitor / search provider.
- HouseCheckup Complete: £24.99, self-serve — you buy it yourself before you offer.
- Shared core layers: flood, ground stability, coal mining, radon, planning — same underlying official sources.
- Landmark goes deeper on contaminated-land liability and adds energy-infrastructure proximity.
- HouseCheckup adds crime, schools, transport, EPC running costs, an indicative value range and a 0–100 score.
- Only Landmark carries professional indemnity insurance and lender acceptance.
Why look for a Landmark alternative before you offer?
The friction is the model, not the data. Landmark sells to conveyancers and search providers, so RiskView normally reaches you as a disbursement on your solicitor's bill after your offer is accepted — you cannot simply run one yourself on a house you are still deciding about. For a buyer weighing up a shortlist, that is the wrong stage and the wrong price. HouseCheckup closes that gap: enter an address, get a Snapshot immediately, and buy a £24.99 Complete report yourself on the property you are about to offer on, pulling the same core environmental layers from the same official sources — and presenting each result in terms of what it means for your purchase, not for a conveyancer's file.
"Solicitors should consider the impact of climate change on their clients' property transactions... Conveyancers may wish to consider environmental searches as part of standard practice."
That practice note is the regulatory backbone driving both Landmark and Groundsure: the guidance recommends environmental due diligence on most transactions, which conveyancers operationalise by ordering a RiskView or Groundsure report into the standard search pack.
When is a Landmark RiskView search genuinely worth it?
RiskView is the right tool — and worth its price — in these situations:
- You are conveyancing. Once your offer is accepted, a lender-accepted environmental search is a normal disbursement. RiskView's PI backing protects both you and your conveyancer, and its report is built to sit in the file.
- Your lender or conveyancer specifies Landmark. Some conveyancers default to Landmark as their environmental supplier; some lender panels prefer it. If yours does, RiskView is what you get and it is not optional.
- The property sits in a known contamination or mining area. RiskView's consultant-reviewed contaminated-land liability assessment (under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 Part 2A regime) is deeper than HouseCheckup's Environment Agency data overview, and that depth can matter near former industrial sites.
Outside those cases, paying ~£163 for RiskView before you have an accepted offer is rarely the right call — and usually not even possible for a consumer to arrange directly. Triage with the free ground-stability check and a £24.99 HouseCheckup report first.
What does HouseCheckup cover that Landmark RiskView does not?
RiskView is built for conveyancers; HouseCheckup is built for buyers. The result is a different feature set:
- Crime statistics — street-level Police UK data with IMD deprivation context. RiskView does not include crime.
- Ofsted school ratings with distance and catchment context. RiskView does not include schools.
- Ofcom broadband and mobile coverage, plus NaPTAN/rail transport. RiskView does not include consumer connectivity or transport.
- EPC and energy running costs — full breakdown plus carbon. RiskView is an environmental risk report, not an EPC report.
- Sold-price comparables and an indicative value range. RiskView does not value the property.
- Investment analysis across five strategies (Investor Pro tier). RiskView does not analyse investment potential.
- A single 0–100 HouseCheckup Score combining weighted factors. RiskView does not produce a composite consumer score.
What does Landmark RiskView cover that HouseCheckup does not?
Honest gaps where Landmark is the right tool, not HouseCheckup:
- Professional indemnity insurance and lender acceptance. RiskView is an insured, conveyancer-grade product accepted by lenders; HouseCheckup is informational and not lender-accepted.
- Consultant-reviewed contaminated-land liability assessment. RiskView carries a professional opinion under the Part 2A regime; HouseCheckup surfaces the underlying Environment Agency contaminated-land data at overview level.
- Energy-infrastructure proximity — pylons, substations and pipelines within a set radius. RiskView includes this; HouseCheckup currently does not.
- Conveyancer-grade documentation formatted to sit in your solicitor's file and meet Law Society/SRA expectations. HouseCheckup is not built for that purpose.
Landmark RiskView vs HouseCheckup: which should I use?
| You are… | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A buyer weighing up whether to offer | HouseCheckup Complete (£24.99) | Self-serve, buyer-framed, run it yourself before you commit. |
| Conveyancing on an accepted offer | Landmark RiskView (via your solicitor) | Lender-accepted, PI-backed environmental search for the file. |
| Buying near a former industrial or mining site | HouseCheckup £24.99 first, then RiskView at exchange | RiskView's consultant contaminated-land depth genuinely matters there. |
| Buying in a low-risk area (non-mining, non-industrial) | HouseCheckup £24.99; standard search pack at exchange | RiskView's environmental depth is standard-pack territory, not a pre-offer spend. |
| A buy-to-let investor | HouseCheckup Investor Pro (£109.90) | Yield and ROI analysis Landmark does not attempt. |
Can I get Landmark's data without ordering RiskView?
Most of the source data RiskView aggregates is publicly available through GOV.UK services and the underlying agencies:
- GOV.UK long-term flood risk (Environment Agency)
- BGS GeoSure ground-stability hazard layers
- UKradon address-level radon search
- Coal Authority Ground Stability service
- Local planning authority registers (each LPA hosts its own)
What Landmark (and HouseCheckup) actually sell is the aggregation, interpretation and scoring — pulling these into one place and telling you what each result means. The data is free; the read-out is the product. The difference is that RiskView wraps its read-out in PI insurance and consultant review for the conveyancing file, while HouseCheckup presents it for a buyer's decision at a fraction of the price.
Key takeaways: Landmark RiskView alternative in 2026
- Landmark RiskView is a conveyancer-ordered environmental search (~£136 + VAT ≈ £163 inc VAT) — PI-backed, lender-accepted, and normally bought via your solicitor after an accepted offer.
- You usually cannot buy RiskView yourself — Landmark sells to conveyancers, not consumers.
- HouseCheckup is the pre-offer, self-serve counterpart — £24.99, same core environmental layers from the same official sources, plus crime, schools, transport, EPC economics, a value range and a 0–100 score.
- Use both, in sequence: HouseCheckup at £24.99 to decide whether to offer, then Landmark (or Groundsure) via your solicitor at exchange. That is the cheapest complete due-diligence path.
- See also our Groundsure comparison and the best UK property reports 2026 comparison.
The environmental read you can run before you offer — not after.
Landmark sells RiskView to conveyancers at ~£163. HouseCheckup sells to you: run the free ground-stability check, then get the full £24.99 report on the home you actually want.
References
- Landmark Information Group — property, land and environmental data — Landmark Information Group Ltd
- RiskView Residential Report — pricing and coverage (search-provider listing) — Severn Trent Searches
- Climate Change Practice Note for Property Lawyers — The Law Society of England and Wales
- Check the long term flood risk for an area in England — Environment Agency / GOV.UK
- BGS GeoSure — ground-stability hazard data — British Geological Survey
- Environmental Protection Act 1990, Part 2A — contaminated land regime — UK Statute / legislation.gov.uk
Done comparing? Check a real property.
The £24.99 Complete report runs 15+ official-source checks on the exact address you're considering — flood, subsidence, coal mining, radon, crime, EPC, sold-price history and more — with a plain-English read on every one.
Try or search any UK postcode
£24.99 one-off · no subscription · Human-checked and emailed to you. See a sample report