Land and Property Data — FAQs
General
1. Where can I get information about Land Registry in the rest of the United Kingdom and Ireland?
Links for HM Land Register, Land Registry of Northern Ireland and the Irish Land Registry can be found on our links page, along with other useful websites.
2. How soon do transactions get recorded with RoS?
Recorded/Registered sales usually arrive at RoS within a few weeks following the date of entry.
Data-Land Values
1. Why do some flat nos. appear in a date format in the "Building Name" column?
Using MS Excel with CSV data
The address file contains fields relating to property numbers e.g. Sub-building/Building Name/PropertyNumber. When opening the CSV file in MS Excel it automatically provides a "General" data type. This will change text containing "1/11" to "01-Nov" because Excel presumes this is a date. To ensure that the original data is not changed follow the instructions below:
- When retrieving the CSV data always "Save Target file as…" instead of "Open from current location"
- Re-open the CSV file from the saved location by right-clicking and choose option "Open With…"
- Select "Notepad" from the list.
- Re-save the file ensuring that you add the extension ".npd" at the end of new file name. This will save as a text file. Close the file.
- Open MS Excel and locate the file with ".npd" using the "Open" command. You will have to select "All files" from the "Files of type" drop-down list.
- Open the file you named with ".npd" by double clicking on it.
- A "text import wizard" dialog box will appear. Step 1. Ensure "delimited" is selected and press "Next".
- Step 2. Select "comma" as the delimiter.
- Step 3. scroll along so you can view columns "Sub-Building", "Building name" and "Property Number". Select a column and change the "Column date format" to "Text". Do this for each column.
- Click "Finish"
The data has not been affected by MS Excel and flat numbers such as "1/11" will now appear as they should.
2. Can you provide definitions for the field names?
Please view this field names document.
Reports
1. What kind of averages are produced?
The published data are simple averages and based on basic analysis using transactions between £20,000 and £1,000,000. No weighting or adjustment is applied to the information collected to reflect any seasonal or other factors, such as house type, new build or second hand transactions.
2. Can you provide data by house type?
We are not in a position to provide separate figures for detached houses, flats etc.
3. What about land type?
All reports are for residential sales. We are not in a position to provide analysis on Land or Commercial transactions or brownfield and greenfield land.
4. Can I get information by Local Authority boundaries?
Yes, our reports are based mainly on Local Authority and Land Register boundaries.
5. I just need a few basic figures?
Check our press releases for free high level information on average prices and value of sales. Also our Statistics page.
6. What size of sample do you use for statistics?
We don't use samples but base our figures on all sales that are recorded/registered whether they are cash purchases or funded by mortgages. As the Registers of Scotland captures every house sale in Scotland we hold the most comprehensive data on house prices at national and local level, and individual property sales.
