Property sales figures 'appear to be wrong'
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2008
Official government figures for property sales appear to be wrong and have been withdrawn from publication.
The government statistics are a major indicator for any shift in house prices and are published on a monthly basis by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), including all sales over £40,000.
Statistics for July were due to be released on Thursday, but have been postponed after HMRC admitted they were unsure about their accuracy.
A HMRC spokeswoman commented: "Outputs obtained whilst updating the monthly series contained some significant and unexplained differences with the statistics published last month.
"Our statisticians have come to the conclusion that something doesn't look quite right."
Although the value of homes is dropping and the number of sales falling, the figures suggested that there had only been 77,000 transactions in the UK this July, compared to 140,000 in 2007.
The figures will now be re-evaluated and their release has been put back until September 21st.
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