HPI is a brand. The underlying data is public.
"HPI Check" is a registered trademark of HPI Limited, which sits within Solera Holdings alongside the trade-data brand Cap hpi. The HPI Check brand has become an industry-generic phrase for any comprehensive vehicle history report. The core data underneath — DVLA records, MOT history, mileage trajectory — is publicly available to anyone with a UK number plate. SortedCheck pulls those free essentials instantly, and offers paid tiers covering the commercial data layers (stolen, finance, write-off) for buyers who want the full provenance picture.
HPI-brand checks bundle stolen, finance, and write-off records — all commercial data from Experian, not DVLA. Every paid tier from £4.99 covers stolen, finance, and write-off checks with a data-accuracy guarantee. Free check below returns DVLA + MOT as supporting context.
Run your free check first →The paid tier options appear after your free check loads.
Free DVLA + MOT + mileage analysis. Paid tiers add stolen, finance and write-off checks. Free PDF report by email.
The free DVLA & MOT check above is informational only — no data-accuracy guarantee. Upgrade for stolen, finance, write-off and mileage checks, backed by a £10,000–£30,000 guarantee.
Enter a registration above to start. All paid checks include a professional branded PDF report emailed to you.
"HPI" stands for Hire Purchase Information — originally a finance industry database set up in 1938 to help dealers find out whether a car offered in part-exchange still had finance owing on it. The HPI Check service is a registered trademark of HPI Limited, which is part of Solera Holdings. Over the decades "HPI check" has become an industry-generic phrase for any comprehensive vehicle history report. SortedCheck is not affiliated with HPI Limited.
A full HPI Limited report typically covers: outstanding finance, insurance write-off category and date, stolen-vehicle markers from the police register, mileage anomaly flags, plate and colour change history, keeper count, salvage-auction records and a vehicle valuation. The data behind it comes from multiple feeds — finance houses for hire purchase and PCP records, MIAFTR for insurance write-offs, the Police National Computer for stolen-vehicle markers, DVLA for keeper changes and registration data, and DVSA for MOT and mileage history.
This page returns the layers of an HPI report that come from public UK government sources — DVLA's Vehicle Enquiry Service and DVSA's MOT History API. That means you get:
What the free tier does not cover are the commercial data layers: outstanding finance, write-off category, stolen-vehicle status, salvage records and keeper count. Those datasets are licensed from finance houses, the Association of British Insurers and the Police National Computer respectively, and cannot be republished for free.
SortedCheck's Protected £10K tier (£4.99) and Protected £20K and £30K tiers add the commercial layers and back them with a data-accuracy guarantee of up to £30,000. The data is sourced via Experian, the credit-reference and provenance bureau that supplies most of the UK motor industry. Every SortedCheck Protected report is backed by a written guarantee against material data inaccuracy.
A free HPI-style check tells you whether the car exists, whether it is taxed and MOT'd, and whether the mileage record is consistent. That is enough to filter out the majority of "obviously broken" listings. It is not enough on its own when you are about to buy. Outstanding finance is the most common silent issue in UK private sales — under the Hire Purchase Act 1964 a private buyer in good faith has limited statutory protection, but you should not rely on it. Run a Protected check before paying.
No. HPI Limited is a separate UK company owned by Solera Holdings. SortedCheck is operated by Sorted Cars Ltd in the UK and is not affiliated with HPI Limited. We use the phrase "HPI-style" descriptively to indicate that our paid tiers cover the same data categories (finance, stolen, write-off, keeper).
SortedCheck Protected tiers start at £4.99. The data-accuracy guarantee is backed by Experian's indemnity scheme.
No. Outstanding finance comes from a commercial database licensed by finance houses to a small number of resellers. It is not in DVLA or DVSA data. Run a paid Protected check before completing any private purchase — finance markers are the single most common reason a deal goes wrong after the money has changed hands.
DVLA and DVSA data is queried live each time you run a check. Commercial finance, write-off and stolen-vehicle data is refreshed continuously by the source databases — when you run a Protected check you get the data as of that moment. Re-running on the day of purchase is best practice.
A commercial vehicle history report. The HPI brand bundles DVLA public data with commercial datasets (stolen-vehicle register, finance register, insurance write-offs) and sells it as one report.
The HPI-branded full check is not free. Basic equivalents of the public-data portion (MOT, DVLA details) are free from gov.uk and SortedCheck. The paid portion (stolen, finance, write-off) is what you'd pay for — SortedCheck's paid tiers start at £4.99.
Stolen-vehicle register, outstanding finance register, insurance write-off category, plate and colour changes, and a data-accuracy guarantee. SortedCheck's paid tiers cover all of those categories, starting at £4.99.
It's a marketing term meaning the car has no flags in the HPI database — no stolen report, no active finance, no write-off. SortedCheck's Protected tiers return the same data categories (stolen, finance, write-off) with a data-accuracy guarantee.