How to read your report

Start at the top

The opening shows three figures: what the home would cost each month, the flood risk, and how the asking price compares with recent similar sales nearby. Each links to its evidence.

What matters for this home lists the few findings most worth your attention, warnings first. At a glance gives one card per topic with a small chart.

Quick view or full evidence

Quick view shows each section's pictures and key figures. Choose Show the evidence in any section, or Full evidence at the top, to see every figure, its source and its date. Printing and the PDF always include everything.

What the colours mean

• Red is only ever a warning or a negative finding, on the map and in the charts.
• Amber means something to check.
• Green is a good sign.
• Grey is neutral, or an old figure that may no longer hold.

"Unavailable" is not "nothing there"

When a source cannot be checked, the report says Unavailable and why. When a check finds nothing, it says none recorded: that means nothing is on the official record, not that nothing could apply. Some data is simply not published in every nation, and the report says so and points you to where to look.

Flooding

There are two kinds of flood map. The planning flood zone (Zone 2 or 3) ignores flood defences; planners, insurers and your solicitor's flood search use it. The risk with defences (England and Wales) or SEPA likelihood (Scotland) estimates the chance of flooding each year. A home can be in Zone 3 with a low chance because of defences. A past flood recorded at the point always keeps a warning.

How the area is changing

The report compares about fifteen signals with the rest of the borough: prices, sales, residents, new businesses, crime, deprivation, new stations and more. The gentrification indication (few, some, clear or strong signs, mixed, or moving the other way) comes only from how many point each way. It is a plain count, not a score or a prediction, and every signal is listed so you can judge for yourself.

Area scores (experimental)

Below the at-a-glance cards, four themes (safety, travel, gentrification and neighbourhood) are each scored from 1 to 5. Every score is a weighted average of figures already in the report, such as crime per resident against the borough, the nearest station, parks, road noise or the area change signals, using weights and bands from a file we review. Open How this is worked out under a score to see each figure, what it scored, its weight and what was missing: a missing figure is left out, never counted as zero, and a theme with too little evidence says so. The scores are an experiment, not an official rating; they leave out anything about who lives here and never change the assessment, the headlines or the questions.

Costs, questions and your shortlist

What it would cost starts from the asking price with a 10% deposit and the most common council tax band nearby; change any figure. Energy estimates come from certificates made at older prices, so they are shown apart. Questions to ask turns the findings into questions for the viewing, the seller, your solicitor and your surveyor, and covers what open data cannot tell you, such as price cuts, subsidence, Japanese knotweed, cladding, service charges and whether the road is adopted; the most pressing are marked "Ask first". Add homes to your shortlist to compare up to four side by side.

Getting the exact home

A postcode is an area. For evidence about the home itself (its energy certificate, for example), choose its address from the recorded sale addresses, or use Choose your building on the map: the report matches the building to its official address point where it can.

What the report cannot do

It is not a survey, a valuation, legal advice or a search. It reports official records as they are published, with their dates and their limits. Use it to shortlist homes and prepare questions, then rely on your surveyor and solicitor for the building and the legal details. Every source is credited on the data sources page.