OPDA Knowledge base
Concept tier agent

Organisation

opda:Organisation

Organisation

An Organisation is a corporate or unincorporated body party to a property transaction — a limited company, an LLP, a charity, a trust, a public body. Organisations can be Sellers, Buyers, Proprietors, and Conveyancers.

Why it matters

A non-trivial share of UK residential transactions involves an Organisation on at least one side — buy-to-let landlords as limited companies, housing associations, family trusts, executors of estates, charities receiving bequests. The model must treat an Organisation as a first-class party (with its own multi-identifier IC) and let the same transactional roles (Seller / Buyer / Proprietor) be borne by either kind of party. This is why those roles are Role Mixins (cross-Kind), not plain Roles.

If you are an integrator implementing AML/KYC for corporate parties, this is the entity whose IC governs your dedup.

Hard cases

  • Merger. Two companies merge into one. Per Kendall’s S005 Q4 framing, the merger produces a new Organisation individual with a prov:wasDerivedFrom chain to the predecessors — not a continuation of either predecessor.
  • Demerger. One company demerges into two. Two new Organisations, each with a derivation chain to the predecessor.
  • Dissolution. An Organisation dissolves. The record persists as a ceased-entity record; it does not vanish from the audit trail.
  • Multi-jurisdiction identifiers. One Organisation carries a UK Companies House Registration Number (CRN), a Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), and potentially other jurisdiction-issued IDs. The IC accommodates multiple identifiers for one Kind — FIBO LegalEntity pattern.

Identity Criterion

Two records refer to the same Organisation if they describe the same legal entity via a FIBO LegalEntity-style multi-identifier match (CRN, LEI, jurisdiction-specific IDs). A merger or demerger produces a new Organisation linked via provenance chain — never collapsed onto either predecessor. See the Logical tier → for the typed structure.

IC walk-through: merger / demerger / dissolution

Per S005 Q4, neither merger nor demerger continues an existing Organisation — both produce new Organisations linked by provenance:

%%{init: {"theme": "base"}}%% flowchart TD accTitle: Organisation IC merger and demerger decision flow accDescr: Decision tree for Organisation identity across structural change — merger produces a new Organisation with prov:wasDerivedFrom links to predecessors; demerger produces multiple new Organisations linked back to the predecessor; dissolution preserves the record as ceased. classDef cls fill:#E1BEE7,stroke:#6A1B9A,stroke-width:2px,color:#4A148C classDef success fill:#C8E6C9,stroke:#2E7D32,stroke-width:2px,color:#1B5E20 classDef warning fill:#FFF9C4,stroke:#F9A825,stroke-width:2px,color:#F57F17 classDef errorState fill:#FFCDD2,stroke:#C62828,stroke-width:2px,color:#B71C1C Start(["Structural event
on Organisation"]):::cls Q1{"Merger
(N companies → 1)?"}:::cls Q2{"Demerger
(1 company → N)?"}:::cls Q3{"Dissolution?"}:::cls NewMerged(["NEW Organisation;
predecessors linked via
prov:wasDerivedFrom"]):::warning NewDemerged(["N NEW Organisations;
each linked to predecessor
via prov:wasDerivedFrom"]):::warning Ceased(["Organisation persists
as CEASED record"]):::errorState Persists(["Organisation persists
(routine update)"]):::success Start --> Q1 Q1 -->|"Yes"| NewMerged Q1 -->|"No"| Q2 Q2 -->|"Yes"| NewDemerged Q2 -->|"No"| Q3 Q3 -->|"Yes"| Ceased Q3 -->|"No"| Persists
  • Person — the other party Kind that can bear transactional roles
  • Proprietor — the Role an Organisation can bear (under a named specialisation) when registered as owner
  • Seller — the Role Mixin an Organisation can bear when disposing of a Property
  • Buyer — the Role Mixin an Organisation can bear when acquiring a Property
%%{init: {"theme": "base"}}%% flowchart LR accTitle: Organisation related-Kinds neighbourhood graph accDescr: Organisation as the corporate alternative bearer for the three transactional roles — Seller, Buyer, Proprietor — mirroring Person; structural events handled by prov:wasDerivedFrom chains. classDef centre fill:#E1BEE7,stroke:#6A1B9A,stroke-width:3px,color:#4A148C classDef cls fill:#B3E5FC,stroke:#0277BD,stroke-width:2px,color:#01579B Organisation["Organisation"]:::centre Person["Person"]:::cls Seller["Seller"]:::cls Buyer["Buyer"]:::cls Proprietor["Proprietor
(specialisation)"]:::cls Seller -->|"borneBy"| Organisation Buyer -->|"borneBy"| Organisation Proprietor -->|"borneBy (specialisation)"| Organisation Organisation -.->|"alternative bearer to"| Person

Source ODR

ODR-0006 — Agents and roles §Q6

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