Author: Pulse Assent

This month’s Price Paid Data includes details of more than 101,000 sales of land and property in England and Wales that HM Land Registry received for registration in October 2017.

In the dataset, you can find the date of sale for each property, its full address and sale price, its category (residential or commercial) and type (detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat or maisonette and other), whether it is new build or not and whether it is freehold or leasehold.

The number of sales received for registration by property type and month

Of the 101,008 sales received for registration in October 2017:

• 74,649 were freehold, a 9% increase on October 2016
• 11,949 were newly built, a 8.5% decrease on October 2016

There is a time difference between the sale of a property and its registration at HM Land Registry.

Of the 101,008 sales received for registration, 27,229 took place in October 2017 of which:

• 479 were of residential properties in England and Wales for £1 million and over
• 253 were of residential properties in Greater London for £1 million and over
• 3 were of residential properties in Greater Manchester for £1 million and over

The most expensive residential sale taking place in October 2017 was of a flat in the City of Westminster, London for £15,750,000. The cheapest residential sale in October 2017 was of a terraced property in Bishop Auckland, County Durham for £18,500.

The most expensive commercial sale taking place in October 2017 was in the City of Westminster, London for £148,922,635. The cheapest commercial sale in October 2017 was in Taunton Deane, Somerset, for £100.

Access the full dataset

Notes to editors

1. Price Paid Data is published at 11 am on the 20th working day of each month. Due to the public holidays in December, the November dataset will be published on 2 January 2018.
2. Price Paid Data is property price data for all residential and commercial property sales in England and Wales that are lodged with HM Land Registry for registration in that month, subject to exclusions.
3. The amount of time between the sale of a property and the registration of this information with HM Land Registry varies. It typically ranges between 2 weeks and 2 months. Data for the two most recent months is therefore incomplete and does not give an indication of final monthly volumes. Occasionally the interval between sale and registration is longer than two months. The small number of sales affected cannot be updated for publication until the sales are lodged for registration.
4. Price Paid Data categories are either Category A (Standard entries) which includes single residential properties sold for full market value or Category B (Additional entries) for example sales to a company, buy-to-lets where they can be identified by a mortgage and repossessions.
5. HM Land Registry has been collecting information on Category A sales from January 1995 and on Category B sales from October 2013.
6. Price Paid Data can be downloaded in txt, csv format and in a machine readable format as linked data and is released under Open Government Licence (OGL). Under the OGL, HM Land Registry permits the use of Price Paid Data for commercial or non-commercial purposes. However, the OGL does not cover the use of third party rights, which HM Land Registry is not authorised to license.
7. The Price Paid Data report builder allows users to build bespoke reports using the data. Reports can be based on location, estate type, price paid or property type over a defined period of time.
8. HM Land Registry is a government department created in 1862. It operates as an executive agency and a trading fund and its running costs are covered by the fees paid by the users of its services. Its ambition is to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data.
9. HM Land Registry safeguards land and property ownership worth more than £4 trillion, including about £1 trillion of mortgages. The Land Register contains around 24 million titles, which show evidence of ownership, covering some 84% of the land mass.
10. For further information about HM Land Registry visit www.gov.uk/land-registry.
11. Follow us on
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After a thorough investigation into the sector, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has identified widespread concerns about the information people are given, and gathered evidence which it considers reveal breaches of the law.

The CMA is raising its concerns with a number of these websites and will be requiring them to take action where necessary. While it notes that some sites have already made changes since it opened the investigation, the CMA wants to ensure all sites comply with the law and that their customers are better informed about the tickets they are buying:

• it must be clear if there are restrictions on using a resold ticket that could result in buyers being denied access to an event;
• people should know whom they are buying from – for example if the seller is a business and/or an event organiser – and can benefit from their legal rights; and
• customers need to be told where exactly in a venue they will be seated.

In addition, the CMA will be acting to address a failure by one website to comply fully with formal commitments it had previously given to improve the information provided about tickets advertised on its site.

The CMA has also broadened the scope of its original investigation to include a number of additional issues, prompted by new information gathered in the course of its work, specifically:

• pressure selling – whether claims made about the availability and popularity of tickets create a misleading impression or rush customers into making a buying decision;
• difficulties for customers in getting their money back under a website’s guarantee;
• speculative selling – where businesses advertise tickets for sale that they do not yet own and therefore may not be able to supply; and
• concerns about whether the organisers of some sporting events have sold tickets as a primary seller directly through a secondary ticket website, without making this clear to consumers.

The CMA will gather and assess evidence on these additional issues before deciding on whether further enforcement action is required.

Andrea Coscelli, CMA Chief Executive, said:

Secondary ticketing websites can offer an important service – by allowing people the chance to buy tickets at the last minute or giving them a chance to re-sell tickets they can no longer use. But our investigation has identified concerns that the law protecting consumers is being broken.

Thousands of people use these sites and they have a right to know if there is a risk that they will be turned away at the door, who they’ve bought their ticket from or exactly what seat at the venue they’re getting for their money.

He added:

We are putting our concerns to these websites and will be requiring the changes necessary to tackle them. We will use the full range of our powers to get the right outcome for these sites’ customers – including taking action through the courts if needed.

In addition, the CMA will continue to work closely with partner agencies and enforcers including:

• the Advertising Standards Authority which is investigating whether secondary ticketing websites have broken advertising rules; and
• National Trading Standards (NTS) and Trading Standards Scotland which are looking at the practices of businesses that buy and sell tickets in bulk. In NTS’s case this will include looking at how these businesses acquire tickets.

The CMA will also be engaging with event organisers to help them to avoid being challenged for using unfair terms to restrict the resale of their tickets. The CMA has today proposed a number of steps that the industry could take in order to stop consumers losing out. The CMA is inviting feedback from the industry on this proposed approach.

Notes for editors

1. In June 2016, the CMA launched a compliance review of secondary ticketing websites. The review revealed concerns about information provision and compliance with consumer protection law across the sector as a whole, which prompted the CMA to launch an enforcement investigation in December 2016.
2. The CMA has not reached a final view on whether the practices it is concerned about breach consumer protection law, and will listen to the websites’ responses to its concerns. If necessary the CMA will take action through the courts to enforce that law under Part 8 of the Enterprise Act 2002. Ultimately, only a court can rule that a particular practice infringes the law.
3. During the course of the investigation some secondary ticketing websites have already made changes to their practices in relation to the CMA’s areas of concern, which it welcomes. Where appropriate the CMA will seek commitments to ensure that changes already made are maintained as well as seeking any additional steps required to address its outstanding concerns.
4. The CMA is the UK’s primary competition and consumer authority. It is an independent non-ministerial government department with responsibility for carrying out investigations into mergers, markets and the regulated industries and enforcing competition and consumer law. For CMA updates, follow us on Twitter @CMAgovuk, Flickr and LinkedIn and like our Facebook page.
5. The key pieces of consumer protection legislation relevant to the CMA’s investigation are the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA), the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (CCRs), the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) and the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 (ECRs).
6. As an enforcer under Part 8 of the Enterprise Act 2002, the CMA cannot levy administrative fines but it can enforce the above legislation through the courts, and where appropriate, obtain additional measures to improve consumer choice, drive better compliance with the law, or obtain redress for consumers.
7. Media Enquiries should be directed to press@cma.gsi.gov.uk or 0203 728 6790.
8. Non media enquiries should be directed at general.enquiries@cma.gsi.gov.uk.

A new service which allows people to get forecasts for river levels to help them manage their risk of flooding is available in the Calder Valley.

It is being provided by the Environment Agency on the website Gov.UK and shows a 36 hour forecast alongside observed data for the past 5 days. The service covers the River Calder at Walsden, Todmorden, Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd and Sowerby Bridge. The aim is to help people be more aware of risks and be able to plan for potential flood incidents.

Previously, people could view river levels for the previous 5 days, but now they can search by postcode on the river and sea levels service page and see what levels are expected to look like for these rivers over the next 36 hours. These new river forecasts are calculated by computer models that take into account data like current flows and expected rainfall.

The introduction of this service follows a successful pilot for people living in the community, including flood wardens, between March and June 2017. The plan is to continue to refine the service, based on feedback from users, before it is rolled out more widely in the future.

Forecast information can change quickly, often because of the weather, so people are still advised to sign up for our free flood warning service to get the most up-to-date and accurate situation. our flood warning service is updated every 15 minutes.

Why do residents find it useful?

Simon Hildon, from the Environment Agency’s flood resilience team in Calderdale, said:

We are always looking at ways to use technology to better share information with people. Residents have told us that they would find it really useful to see these river forecasts to help them manage their flood risk.

We want people to know if they’re at risk of flooding, be prepared, and take action to protect themselves and their families. A wealth of information is available on our website and we’d encourage everyone to check whether they’re at risk.

Mytholmroyd flood warden says river forecasts help them

Karl Boggis, one of the flood wardens in Mytholmroyd, said:

As flood wardens we use the river levels service to see what is happening at, not just, our measuring station, but also those up stream. Having the addition of the 36 hours of forecasted level, helps us better prepare and inform our community of what might be expected.

People who live in areas where the 36-hour river level forecasts are not available yet can still view data on river levels from the previous 5 days and check for flood warnings.