The ungodly jumble: Residential address identifiers and embedded uncertainty

Abstract

Property assets exist simultaneously as physical structures, legal constructs and digital abstractions, yet the systems used to identify and evaluate them often struggle to reconcile these overlapping realities. This paper examines the growing disconnect between the physical attributes of residential property, the legal and historical complexity of title, and the digital layers produced through contemporary mapping, modelling and automated valuation. While tools such as digital twins, geographic information systems (GIS), automated valuation models (AVMs) and machine learning aim to deliver precision and scale, each introduces its own assumptions, simplifications and inherent uncertainties. Address identifiers such as the unique property reference number (UPRN) promise consistency, but cannot account for the nuanced and frequently non-conforming nature of legal title boundaries, historical parcelling or rights and obligations embedded in property records. Through exploring these tensions, the paper highlights how system-generated certainty can obscure material ambiguities, and how over-reliance on automation risks misidentifying characteristics essential to valuation, lending and risk assessment. The analysis argues for a rebalancing of professional practice that recognises the limits of computational abstraction and reinforces the importance of human expertise in interpreting the layered, sometimes contradictory realities that underpin the built environment. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.