Real estate data guide

Property is one of the few sectors where company formation itself is a signal. Most industries incorporate once and trade for years. Property incorporates constantly, because the structure of the business demands it.

What the register holds

Every UK limited company in real estate appears on the public register with the same core record as any other company:

• registered name and company number
• current status, active, dissolved, in liquidation
• date of incorporation
• registered office address, including postcode
• the SIC codes the company selected for itself
• its officers, with appointment and resignation dates
• people with significant control, so who ultimately owns it
• filing history and when accounts are next due

Real estate sits in SIC division 68, which splits into a handful of codes worth knowing apart:

• 68100 buying and selling of own real estate
• 68209 other letting and operating of own or leased real estate
• 68310 real estate agencies
• 68320 management of real estate on a fee or contract basis

Those are different businesses. A 68310 agency and a 68209 landlord have almost nothing in common commercially, and lumping them together is the most common mistake people make with this data.

Why new incorporations matter here

Property is routinely held in single purpose vehicles, one company per building, per scheme, sometimes per unit. A developer with twelve sites may have twelve companies. That structure exists for financing and for risk, and it has a side effect: a new company appearing under 68100 or 68209 is often a new acquisition or a new scheme, visible at the point it happens rather than months later.

Nothing else in the public record moves that fast. Planning data lags, Land Registry lags, listings only appear when someone wants them to. Incorporation is same-week.

That is the single most useful thing the register does for this sector, and most people never use it.

What the register does not hold

Being clear about this matters more than the list above.

• What property a company owns. The register tells you the company exists and who runs it. Which titles it holds is Land Registry, a separate dataset entirely.
• Turnover, portfolio value or rent roll. Small companies file abridged accounts, and most SPVs are small companies. You will not find the numbers.
• The trading address. A registered office is very often the accountant's office. Do not read it as where the business operates or where the property sits.
• Contact details. No phone, no email, no website.

The SIC code is also self-declared and never checked. Plenty of property companies sit under 70229 management consultancy or 82990 other business support because someone picked from a dropdown at incorporation. Treat SIC as a strong filter, not a definition.

What people in the sector actually do with it

• Build a list of every landlord or agent operating in a postcode, including the ones with no website
• Watch new SPV formations as an early signal of acquisitions and developments
• Screen a counterparty before a deal: how long they have existed, who runs them, what else those officers are involved in
• Trace connected companies through shared officers and shared registered addresses
• Read the churn, because dissolutions in this sector cluster and tell you something

Where to start

The real estate sector view breaks the register down by SIC code with formation and dissolution counts, and lists the datasets that apply.

If you need a cut that does not exist yet, tell us what you need and it goes on the list.