Property Valuation and Inspection Visits

Valuation and inspection work starts with a simple but costly question: which property exactly? Instructions arrive with a plot number, a vague area name or an owner's phone number. The inspector drives out, finds three similar buildings, and phones the owner to ask. Multiplied across a day of appointments, that is hours.

A UPCS code answers the question in one short string. It is the exact location of the spot that was picked, a 3 m x 3 m square, and it takes anyone who opens it to that spot. The code does not carry any legal status, but it settles the physical question of where the visit takes place.

Who benefits

• Valuers working for lenders, owners or courts.
• Building and condition surveyors who visit several units in a day.
• Insurance assessors and loss adjusters reviewing premises.
• Quantity surveyors, energy assessors and compliance inspectors.

A workable routine

1. The client or agent picks the main entrance on the map and sends the code with the instruction.
2. The inspector opens the link, checks the spot and taps Get Directions.
3. On arrival, the inspector confirms the property matches the instruction and writes the code in the report header.
4. If a second point matters, such as a rear access or a detached outbuilding, a second code is noted.

Because the same place always gives the same code, a reinspection months later starts at the exact same point, and a reviewer can compare reports without guessing.

Using it with your tools

• Share the code or link in your job card, email or messaging app.
• Use the search box on upcs.io to open any code quickly.
• Developers building a case-management system can call the REST API: POST /v1/upcs/generate returns a code for given coordinates and GET /v1/upcs/lookup/{code} returns the location details. Details are in the documentation.

For related field work, see insurance claims, real estate listings and surveying and mapping teams.

Many visits in a day

An inspector may have five or six appointments across a city, each at a building the inspector has never seen. Having an exact entrance for every job lets the day be planned as a sequence rather than a series of searches, and a client who supplies the code with the instruction removes the first phone call of every visit.

Practical tips

• Ask the requester to pick the entrance, not the middle of the building, so the visitor can walk in right away.
• For large sites, request one code per building.
• Note the code in photos and report metadata so images can be tied to a place.
• Keep the code next to the official address; both are useful to the reader.

Frequently asked questions

Do valuers need an account? Looking up a code needs none. An account is only needed to save and manage your own codes.

What if the property is outside the supported countries? Then the lookup returns an unsupported location error, and you would use your usual address method there.