Governance Updated 2026-05-14 DAMA · Data Governance

Smart Property Data Trust Framework Sandbox

The Sandbox is the operational vehicle of the entire initiative — a live, controlled test environment in which the technical, regulatory and governance foundations for national rollout are being built and stress-tested today.

In their own words

"Delivered in partnership by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC), the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), and Raidiam, funded through the Regulators' Pioneer Fund... governed by the Digital Property Market Steering Group, with active engagement from regulators, government departments, industry bodies and market participants. […] This is not a pilot. It is operational today."

Source: source/07-website/rendered/smart-property-data-trust-framework.html

Delivery partners

Regulator-led

CLC — Council for Licensed Conveyancers

Statutory regulator of licensed conveyancers and probate practitioners in England and Wales. Brings the regulatory authority and consumer-protection credibility to the Sandbox.

Standards-led

OPDA — Open Property Data Association

Owns and publishes the Property Data Trust Framework standard (PDTF: JSON Schema + OpenAPI + v2.0 spec). Runs accreditation.

Operations-led

Raidiam

Trust-framework operations specialist. Same firm behind UK and Brazil Open Banking infrastructure. Provides the technical/operational backbone.

Funding

Funded by the Regulators' Pioneer Fund (RPF) — a UK government innovation fund administered by DSIT. RPF backs experiments by regulators designing innovation-friendly approaches. The Sandbox is structured as one of those experiments.

Governance

Governed by the Digital Property Market Steering Group (DPMSG) — see Steering & coordination. The Sandbox provides the live evidence base that DPMSG uses to advise government.

How the Sandbox works

flowchart LR T["`**1. Test** Real infrastructure built Certified data sources + accredited service providers`"]:::process L["`**2. Learn** Regulatory gaps identified Consent + liability models tested Security + governance standards developed`"]:::process S["`**3. Shape** Evidence-based recommendations go to government + industry`"]:::process N[National rollout standards]:::success T --> L --> S --> N

The three Sandbox phases. Lifted from OPDA's own positioning page.

Sandbox documentation in our archive

The two OPDA-published Sandbox guides:

Document	Pages	Where it lives locally
Introduction to the Sandbox — Setup Guide	—	`source/06-research/trust-framework-poc/Introduction-to-the-Sandbox-Setup-Guide.pdf`
Introduction to the Sandbox — Technical Guide	—	`source/06-research/trust-framework-poc/Introduction-to-the-Sandbox-Technical-Guide.pdf`
Smart Property Data Trust Framework Project Plan	—	`source/06-research/trust-framework-poc/Smart Property Data Trust Framework Project Plan.pdf`
Glossary (Trust Framework PoC working version)	xlsx	`source/06-research/trust-framework-poc/Glossary.xlsx`
Sandbox Co-operation Agreement (formal participant agreement)	docx	`source/06-research/trust-framework-poc/Smart Property Data Trust Framework Sandbox Co-operation Agreement.docx`
Participant Kick-Off deck (19 Nov 2025)	pdf	`source/06-research/trust-framework-poc/ParticipantKickOff_19112025.pdf`
Raidiam — Open Property sandbox slides	pdf	`source/06-research/trust-framework-poc/Raidiam slides Open Property sandbox.pdf`

Eligibility / participation signals

OPDA's join-the-sandbox page does not publish formal admission criteria, but the questions asked of applicants function as de-facto eligibility indicators. Prospective participants are expected to:

consume external APIs as part of their stack;
offer APIs to third parties; and
operate an OAuth2 / OIDC Authorization Server.

In effect, the Sandbox is sized for organisations already running an OAuth2/OIDC-capable API estate.

Sandbox → conformance scheme

A formal certification / conformance programme is planned, not yet operational — see source/03-standards/trust-framework/docs/plan.md §6.2. There is no documented graduation path from Sandbox participation to a live conformance scheme today.

Plus the operational evidence — transcripts of the four monthly "OPDA all-member update — sandbox project" calls (Feb / Mar / Apr / May 2026) in source/04-governance-bodies/working-groups/engagement/transcripts/.

Adjacent delivery streams

Programme	Lead	Status
Smart Data Challenge	DBT	Moverly + OPDA entry won SDCP Innovators prize. See Vimeo transcript at `source/05-engagement/videos-youtube/embedded/vimeo_1140770692.txt`.
HMLR Local Land Charges Programme	HMLR	Council-by-council migration to a national HMLR-run digital register.
MHCLG short design project (May–Aug 2025)	MHCLG	Designing agreed rules-on-data for the property sector.
HMLR council pilots	HMLR	Opening up more local-authority data sources.
Connells	Connells (industry)	OPDA member exploring digital sale-ready implementations (member context, not a Sandbox pilot claim).

Open Banking precedent

The Sandbox model deliberately echoes how Open Banking was developed in the UK — a sandbox first, then graduate to a production trust framework with conformance/certification and a regulatory wrapper. Raidiam's involvement is significant: they ran the equivalent Open Banking infrastructure in Brazil and were part of the UK Open Banking work too. The Sandbox is therefore structurally familiar to UK regulators.