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October 2024

Leading Property Sector Organisations Call on Government to Put UPRN at the Heart of the UK Property Market

A coalition of leading organisations across the UK property sector has published an open letter to the Housing Minister, urging the Government to take decisive action to adopt and implement the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) across the residential property market.

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Signatories highlight the critical role that the UPRN can play in transforming the property market, enhancing transparency, improving market efficiency, and driving significant benefits for both the public and private sectors, as well as consumers.

TLIC UPRN Working Group 2024

Objectives and purpose

 

To promote the adoption and use of UPRN within the lettings industry to facilitate data sharing of accurate property information. The lettings industry requires a better understanding of UPRNs in general and what they are. Knowledge exists in pockets but consumers and professionals are not necessarily aware of what the UPRN is, why and where it should be used etc. Marketing campaigns and awareness raising is required.

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Meeting minutes

Briefing paper

January 2021

Industry urges the use of the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) across the Sector

Leading residential property bodies have published an open letter to Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and copied to Thalia Baldwin, Director of the Geospatial Commission highlighting the potential benefits from a widely adopted Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) and steps that Government needs to take to make this happen. 

The signatories of the letter,  which includes leading bodies from across the residential property sector, believe that the wide market adoption of the UPRN will deliver substantial benefits to UK society, the residential property sector and to Government.​

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UPRN Social Media (002).png

The letter details the benefits of widespread market adoption of the UPRN to society, the economy and property sector:

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  • Improved building, consumer and market safety

  • More targeted and cost-effective enforcement of legislation

  • Increased protection for tenants and a reduction of rogue landlords

  • The ability to speed up conveyancing and transparency in home buying and selling

  • The opportunity to reduce waste, save time and empower the consumer

 

However, the letter also calls for steps by Government and for certain conditions to be met to really enable these benefits:

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  • All public sector data sets relating to properties and buildings should include the UPRN and a clear roadmap is needed to get to this point

  • All future Government tenders and policy relating to residential properties and associated data should mandate the use of the UPRN

  • There must be clear agreement about the ethical use of data in the housing market

  • The UPRN must be in a clear and useable format that allows the UPRN to be widely identified, and freely used and shared

  • This must include the tools, the support materials and the explanation needed by the whole sector for adoption, not just the solution providers

“Every effort should be made to accelerate the adoption of the UPRN by government bodies and residential property management sector stakeholders. The beneficial impact will be massive.

 

Just applying the UPRN to basic tenancy-related gas and electric safety checks will enable mass verification of good practice and instantly highlight rogue landlords for efficient targeted enforcement, to protect tenants and save lives at reduced cost to the taxpayer. Applying the UPRN to Dame Judith Hackitt’s ‘Golden Thread’ of safety information for tall buildings will support sales, lettings and managing agents to comply with their obligations, save time and money in the home buying and selling process, help tenants, buyers, mortgage lenders and insurers to make swift, well-informed decisions and improve the effectiveness of the new Building Safety regulatory regime.

 

Crucially, the UPRN will play a vital role in giving confidence of building safety to residents and financial markets. UPRN adoption is one of the biggest ‘no-brainer’ decisions in a generation.”

Andrew Bulmer

CEO of Institute of Residential Property Managers (IRPM)

“The property sector is at the heart of the economy, people’s wellbeing and our impact on the environment. There are huge opportunities for technology to help with improving every aspect of this, but to do so requires the effective use of data. The wide adoption of the UPRN would be a big step towards providing the foundations to enable this.”

Dan Hughes

Founder of Alpha Property Insight and the Real Estate Data Foundation

“Widespread adoption of UPRN’s could revolutionise the property market, this is a really exciting initiative which has industry support and we now need the Government to add theirs.”

Theresa Wallace

Founder of The Lettings Industry Council (TLIC)

RICS article
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Why we should be encouraging UPRN adoption

2021 – a year for realising the value of location data

Read the GeoPlace blog here

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