Why do some house sale prices never appear online?

[JinglinghellsBells]

I thought this was a legal requirement from the solicitors?

I keep an eye out on sold prices and have noticed that some houses that exchange hands never show up. (Either as a sale at all. or a sale with the sold price.)

They are often the more expensive houses too! I found something online where someone said that if property is sold as part of a company it won't show up. Interestingly some of the homes I've looked at have been bought / sold by people who own a company (sometimes working from home as a consultant) so might they be registering it as a company address and therefore avoiding the sale price appearing?

I wonder this too. Our house happened to go on the market at the same time as our neighbours. Both sold, you can see our sold price but not theirs despite frequent checking

Oh, it's on there now! Obviously took a lot longer to complete than I thought

We were looking specifically at a plot with a couple of houses that were sold as a holiday cottage business but equally could have been sold for private homes, not a business. The sale went through around 9 months ago and the new owners are clearly running it again as a business. We had a half interest in buying it as a private home and hence were keen to know how much it sold for,

If they were sold as a business and are still being used as a business, I don't think the sale price has to be released... although I could be wrong, my law experience is pretty old now!

The property we bought last year doesn't show up online.

I had specifically emailed both Rightmove and Zoopla with instructions to delete the property details (i.e. photographs) from their websites, once we had completed, which they did, but I have since noticed that the property does not appear in the "sold" prices either. Another property exactly the same, in the same road, sold the same day and this is available on "sold" prices online (the new owner paid £1000 less than us, grrr!).

I have no idea why we don't appear online with the sold price, but maybe my request to delete the property details, meant the property disappeared online entirely.

We do have the updated title register which shows the sale price.

Does that help? Probably more confusing!

Ours isnt listed either. Actually after checking only 2 out of our row of five are listed

My house never appeared on sold prices and I've been here 15 years. Neighbours on both sides and across the road are all there. Just not mine and no idea why!

I've just looked again on Zoopla.

Mine is still blank in terms of sold prices, but showing a VASTLY overinflated price of what it would get if sold now (by like a third more).

A nearby 2000s-built 2 bed semi is mysteriously listed as a "1 bed barn conversion" worth about a third LESS than the actual price.

Can't say I'd rely on Zoopla...

I look at Rightmove sold prices rather than zoopla

dS bought his house from a developer in May, the developer bought the house in December. Both their sold prices appeared this week, despite completing five months apart.

We sold a house to a cash buyer in 2012 and that doesn't show in sold prices. I know of some repossessed houses which don't show up either so possibly cash buyers and not mortgaged is the reason.

If you want to know you can always find out from the Land Registry for a £3 fee. The report tells you who the registered owner is, how much they paid and who the mortgage is with.

Our sold price for the house we are in now doesn't appear, we were lead to believe it is because it was sold as a repossession, however I'm not sure how true that is.

Our neighbours doesn't either and that was sold in the same circumstances, yet most other properties on the road appear.

I don't think it has anything to do with being a cash purchase. I know personally of 2 properties that were bought for cash, and both showed up within the usual 2-3 months of completion.

I would imagine that a no-show is down to either a careless solicitor who's forgotten, or a dodgy one who's been asked for whatever dodgy reason not to make the sold price public.
Although it grieves me to say it, IMO there are plenty of dodgy solicitors about - inc. one not a million miles from us, who was banged up for fraud and money laundering.

Okay, so Rightmove and Zoopla have no legal requirement to show anything. Sales done privately and new builds sometimes don’t show up, and you can have your house taken off if you ask.

If you want accurate details of house sales, use PPD. It’s the Land Registry’s website, and has fairly accurate data. You can search for free, and I believe all sales are listed, regardless of whether they’re bought conventionally or by companies/privately.

landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ppd/

Tip - the address boxes are a bit dodgy - I’ve never managed to get the postcode box to work reliably. Date band, price band and county are the most reliable ways to search, then search for an address by ctrl + f.

Ours is wrong on Zoopla!