HPI & provenance checks

An HPI-style check exists because the cost of getting these four things wrong is asymmetric: a £20 report against the risk of inheriting someone else's £15,000 loan, or buying a vehicle that the police will lawfully take back to its registered owner. Across the brands in this hub, the underlying data is identical — DVLA, MIAFTR, PNC and the UK consumer-finance register — but the framing, audience and pricing differ.

Trade-facing brands here (Dealer HPI, Trade HPI, Business HPI, HPI Pro) are built for forecourt and auction speed: batch lookups, API access, sub-second responses. Consumer-facing brands (Cheap HPI, Free HPI, Full HPI Check, My HPI Check) focus on a tidy one-vehicle report that's readable on a phone at a private viewing. Specialist brands (Premium HPI, Smart HPI, HPI Expert, HPI Plus) layer additional analysis — AI risk scoring, mileage forensics, AI damage scans — over the standard register output.

If you're not sure which brand fits, the rule of thumb is: free or cheap for a first-look summary; full HPI before any money changes hands; premium where the vehicle value justifies the additional layer of forensic analysis.