Methodology

How we tell facts and estimates apart.

Every fact on a Truely report comes from an official UK government register and is refreshed the moment the source updates. The one number we estimate — the property valuation — is shown alongside every comparable sale it's based on, so you can verify the working yourself.

Only the public record

Every datapoint you see is published by a UK government body — police, courts, statistical agencies, planning authorities — under the Open Government Licence. If a number isn't on a Truely page, it's because the public record doesn't contain it.

Facts and estimates, clearly separated

Crime, sales, schools, energy, deprivation — all are facts pulled from official registers. The one estimate on the page is the property valuation: comparable HM Land Registry sales, inflation-adjusted, with the methodology and confidence rating shown in full. No hidden weights, no black-box scores.

Refreshed automatically

Crime, sales, schools and energy data are refreshed on the cadence each source publishes — typically monthly. When the official register updates, Truely updates with it, automatically, with no waiting.

Why you can trust it

Truely is not an opinion site. We are a thin layer over the UK public record. Every number is hyperlinked back to the government source that published it — click any of them and you can verify the figure yourself, on the official site, in seconds. No paywalls, no proprietary scoring models, no AI — free to use, with a free account for the full report.

That sounds simple, but the reality is that this same record is normally split across more than thirty separate government sites — each with its own search, its own format, and its own jargon. Truely exists to do the joining-up for you, on the address you actually care about.

What's on a report

Each Truely postcode page is nineteen editorial sections — refreshed live the moment you load the page — covering the full public record about an address area:

  • An above-the-fold snapshot leaderboard with the headline figures and a property-valuation estimate.
  • The sale history of the postcode since 1995, with median price trend and recent-new-build activity.
  • Offshore ownership flagged from the Companies House Register of Overseas Entities — the public register that, since 2022, has named every overseas company holding UK property.
  • Reported crime in the last 12 months, by category and by month.
  • State-funded schools nearby, with the latest Ofsted rating and walking distance.
  • Council tax band distribution and modal-band annual cost for the borough.
  • Energy performance — residential EPCs lodged on the postcode plus commercial Display Energy Certificates (DECs) for any non-domestic buildings, average rating and floor area.
  • Tube / rail / Overground / DLR / Elizabeth-line stations within walking distance.
  • NHS healthcare proximity — nearest GP, hospital, pharmacy.
  • Green-space coverage, with the destination park within 2 km.
  • Fixed-line broadband and mobile-coverage tiers from Ofcom Connected Nations.
  • Air quality (NO₂, PM2.5, ozone) versus WHO health guidelines.
  • Listed buildings within 500 m and conservation-area status.
  • Flood risk from rivers / sea and surface water (Environment Agency NaFRA2).
  • Demographics from the ONS Census 2021, aggregated to the LSOA.
  • Where the area sits on the official deprivation index (English Indices of Deprivation 2025).
  • Your MP, council ward and parliamentary constituency.
  • An interactive map with stations, schools and crime points overlaid.

See the full source list on the About page.

How the property valuation works

The property valuation is the only estimate on a Truely report. It is not a surveyor's opinion, not a lender's valuation, and not a Zoopla- or Rightmove-style "AVM" with secret weights. It's a transparent comparable-sales summary with the methodology disclosed.

  • Inputs. Every recorded HM Land Registry Price Paid transaction within ~500 m of the postcode in the last 5 years, of the same property type (detached, semi, terraced, flat, other).
  • Inflation adjustment. Each comparable sale is adjusted to today's GBP using the official UK House Price Index for the relevant Government Office Region — not a national figure and not our own model.
  • Range, not a point. We publish the 25th, 50th and 75th percentile of the inflation-adjusted comparables — a low / mid / high range, not a single magic number. Real homes vary; the range is the honest answer.
  • Search radius. The radius starts at the postcode itself and widens (250 m → 500 m → 1 km) only as far as it needs to to find at least five comparables. The radius actually used is shown on every estimate.
  • Confidence rating. "High" means ten or more comps, inside 500 m, with a tight price range. "Low" means thin data or a wide spread. If we can't find three comparables, we publish nothing — better silence than a misleading number.
  • What it's not. A surveyor's valuation considers the specific property's condition, layout, and works done — none of which appear in the public record. A lender's valuation also factors in their own risk model. Treat the Truely range as the market context a surveyor's number sits inside, not a substitute for one.

Known limitations

We're upfront about what each source can and can't tell you:

  • Police.uk anonymises crime locations to nearby street centroids, not the actual address. The map dots are approximate by design.
  • HM Land Registry's Price Paid Data omits leasehold transfers under 7 years and confidential transactions. Public registers are not 100% complete.
  • Independent (private) schools are inspected by ISI, not Ofsted, so they appear separately.
  • Some new-build postcodes have been issued recently and may not yet have transacted on the public record.