Energy rating & running costs
The property's own certificate where we can match it: current and potential rating, estimated heating, hot water and lighting costs, and the improvements already recommended for it.
EPC RegisterFeatures
Everything in the report, and nothing that isn’t.
17 sections built from 10 public and government sources, and a toolkit for the viewing itself. Including the checks we still cannot make for you.
- Free core audits
- No credit check
- Sample report, no sign-in
PadAudit report
14 Example Street, Nottingham
- EPC rating
- E · 54
- Surface water flood risk
- Medium
- Broadband, typical
- 74 Mbps
- Council tax band
- Needs checking
EPC RegisterExact address match
Environment AgencyMatched to coordinates
OfcomPostcode median
Ask the agentNot published per address
Three tools, one tenancy
PadAudit is used three times, not once.
Most property tools stop at the listing. The expensive mistakes happen at the viewing and on the day you get the keys, so the product carries on that far.
Stage one · Before you view
12 checks a listing will never make.
A report’s 17 sections, grouped into the 12 questions they answer. Each names the authority behind it — and if no authority is named, we say we worked it out ourselves.
Minimum standards risk
In England and Wales a rating of F or G cannot lawfully be let, and an E sits one band above the floor. The report says where the property lands and what that means before you commit to it.
EPC RegisterFlood & water risk
River, sea and surface water flood risk for the coordinates of the address — the last of which is the one that floods streets nowhere near a river.
Environment AgencyStreet-level crime
Reported crime around the property by category and volume, with outcomes where the force has published them. The street you would actually live on, not the borough average.
Police.ukBroadband & mobile signal
Download and upload speeds matched to the property by UPRN where it is known, and the postcode median where it is not — with the basis stated, plus 4G and 5G coverage by operator.
OfcomSchools & education
Nearby primaries and secondaries with their real walking distance, from a synced national register — each with its inspection outcome where the school has one. Independent schools are not inspected by Ofsted, and the report says so rather than leaving a gap.
Ofsted & GIASGPs, pharmacies & shops
The nearest surgery, pharmacy and supermarket with walking distances. Names are filtered so a private clinic cannot be passed off as your registered GP.
OpenStreetMapTransport & commute
Nearest railway station, tram stop and bus stop with distances, and a count of everything reachable within 3km — so a listing that claims “excellent transport links” can be checked.
OpenStreetMapPlanning, heritage & regeneration
Conservation areas, listed buildings and planning constraints on the property, plus what has been applied for nearby — the building site that has not started yet.
Planning DataSale history & the building's record
What the property and its street last sold for, and when. The rows we cannot fill are removed rather than printed as “Unavailable” fourteen times over.
HM Land RegistryFood hygiene ratings
The published hygiene rating for the food businesses near the property, and how many of them score five. A fair proxy for how well the local high street is looked after.
Food Standards AgencyWalkability & area suitability
A score built from the parks, gyms, shops and transport actually within reach of the address, plus who the area suits. Derived from the sections above, never from a rating someone else sold us.
Calculated in-reportStage two · At the viewing
Ten minutes, a stranger watching, and everything to remember.
A viewing is a bad place to think clearly. The Viewing Toolkit opens on your phone with five tabs, each already filled in from what your report found, so you are reading rather than recalling.
- Ask
- Questions written from your property's own risks. An EPC of E becomes a question about minimum standards, not a number you forget to mention at the door.
- Check
- A condition checklist for the things a listing photo hides — damp around the windows, water pressure, where the boiler actually is, whether the signal reaches the back bedroom.
- Photos
- Prompts for the shots worth having: the boiler, the fuse box, the meters, the parking, anything already damaged.
- Notes
- What the agent said, typed while you can still remember it. Three viewings in, they run together.
- Decision
- Mark the answers that would stop you signing. The toolkit scores what you have confirmed out of 100 and turns it into a plain verdict.
Stage three · After the viewing
Three near-identical flats blur together within a week.
Save each report, sort the shortlist into folders, and line the contenders up side by side on the figures that decide it.
Shortlist & folders
Save reports, group them into folders, and mark each one shortlisted, viewing, applied, rejected or moved in — so a month of searching stays legible.
Compare & share
Line the shortlist up side by side on the figures that decide it, send a full report over WhatsApp for a second opinion, or print it to PDF for the people who want it on paper.
What we don’t do
Four things this page could have claimed, and didn’t.
- The council tax band. No free national dataset publishes a band against an address. We name the billing authority and turn the band into a question for the agent rather than guessing at it.
- Air quality and green space. Both are on the list and neither has a source connected yet. Until one does, a report says so rather than printing a reassuring number.
- Whether a licence has been granted. We flag when a property is the kind that usually needs an HMO or selective licence, and who to ask. Whether one has actually been issued is a council record we cannot read.
- Anything requiring an inspection. Gas safety, electrical certificates, deposit protection and the true state of the boiler are documents, not datasets. They become questions in the toolkit instead.
Questions about the features
Every feature on this page is free. There is no charge for an audit or the Viewing Toolkit, and running one leaves no mark on your credit file.
You can read the full sample report without signing in or giving us anything. PadAudit is in closed beta at the moment, so opening a report on your own address needs an account — and anything you keep, such as a saved shortlist, stays tied to it.
Yes, and the Viewing Toolkit is designed to be used on one — standing in a hallway, one-handed. PadAudit can be added to your home screen on iPhone and Android so it opens like an app.
Every report has the same 17 sections, built from 10 public and government sources. Nothing is dropped because a source came back empty — a section with no data tells you that, and what to ask instead.
No, and no feature here claims to. PadAudit reads published records. Nobody inspects the property, tests anything or signs it off, so a report tells you what the public record says and which questions it raises.
Yes. Copy the link, send it over WhatsApp, or print it to PDF. Anyone you send it to sees the same figures and the same confidence labels you did.
It gives you a score out of 100 based on what you actually confirmed at the viewing, and a plain verdict alongside it. The decision stays yours — the point is that you make it knowing what you checked and what you did not.
Reading about it is slower than running one.
One address, 10 sources, no account needed. Find the problems while walking away is still free.