Governance Updated 2026-05-14

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 classDef phase fill:#eef4f8,stroke:#1a4d80,color:#0b2545,stroke-width:2px; classDef out fill:#dcfce7,stroke:#166534,color:#14532d,stroke-width:2px; T[1. Test
Real infrastructure built
Certified data sources +
accredited service providers]:::phase L[2. Learn
Regulatory gaps identified
Consent + liability models tested
Security + governance standards developed]:::phase S[3. Shape
Evidence-based recommendations
go to government + industry]:::phase N[National rollout standards]:::out 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:

DocumentPagesWhere 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

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

ProgrammeLeadStatus
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 200+ councils migrated to national HMLR-run digital register. Quarterly gold-status ratings.
MHCLG 12-week design project MHCLG Newly announced. Designing agreed rules-on-data for the property sector.
HMLR 10-month council pilots HMLR Opening up more local-authority data sources.
Connells Digital Sale Ready Connells (industry) Real-world implementation pilot building on PDTF — referenced on propdata.org.uk.
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.