---
name: vendor-research
description: "Public-record and CRM-history lookup on a vendor, with the profile's privacy line enforced. Used in valuation-prep, in new-instruction AML staging, and in chase-progression when a vendor goes silent. Surfaces useful context; flags sensitive signals separately."
---

# Vendor research

A cross-cutting building-block skill. Looks the vendor up across the sources the platform has access to and returns a structured summary with the privacy line applied.

## What it looks at

- Land Registry: ownership history, joint owners, transactions
- The agency's CRM history with this vendor and with the property
- Council planning portal: planning applications and decisions for the property
- The portal record if the property has been listed before
- Public probate registry where relevant
- Public news sources via the deep-research tool when the brief warrants it

## The privacy line

The profile holds a privacy preference. Default behaviour:

- **Surface.** Ownership and planning history.
- **Flag-but-suppress.** Deaths registered against the address, ownership changes that correlate with bereavement, planning disputes, anything that the agent could not quote in the appointment without harming their reputation.

The flag-but-suppress signals are not deleted; they are summarised at the top of the output as "n suppressed signals exist on this address, available on request". The operator can say "show me everything you find" to see them, or "drop the sensitive stuff" to remove the heading entirely.

## Output shape

A structured summary with:

- How long the vendor has owned
- Last purchase price
- Joint owners on the title
- Planning history (one-line per material event)
- Prior listings (agent, asking price, sold or withdrawn)
- CRM history with this agent

Plus the suppressed-signal heading if any apply.

## What it does not do

- It does not draft anything to send to the vendor. That is `tone-matched-drafter`.
- It does not produce a valuation. That is `pricing-scenario-builder`.
- It does not write to the CRM. The calling workflow stores anything it wants kept.

## Connectors

Read: Land Registry, planning portal, CRM, portal data, probate registry, deep-research tool. No writes.

## Profile keys

- `realagent.privacy_line.surface` (list of signal types)
- `realagent.privacy_line.suppress` (list of signal types)