Fact-Check Process
The six-step fact-check every Luxury Playbook article passes through before publication: sourcing, numerical verification, attribution, claim review, and pre-publish read-through.
Our commitment
Every article published on The Luxury Playbook is fact-checked before publication. Our subject matter — real estate, equities, crypto, fine assets, and private wealth — sits squarely in Google's Your-Money-Your-Life (YMYL) category, which is held to a higher accuracy bar. We hold ourselves to that bar.
Our six-step process
1. Assignment and sourcing brief
Before writing begins, the assigned author prepares a sourcing brief: the key claims the article will make, the primary sources supporting each claim, and any interviews, datasets, or filings that will be cited. The brief is reviewed by the Head of Editorial.
2. Drafting with inline source tracking
Authors draft with inline citations — every specific number, date, quote, transaction, or attribution is linked to its source within the draft. No statistic or named claim is allowed to float without a source note.
3. Numerical verification
A fact-checker (typically an editor other than the writing author) verifies every number in the article against its primary source. Prices, percentages, dates, addresses, years of operation, assets under management, auction results, interest rates, transaction values — all checked. Discrepancies are either corrected or flagged as estimates with the source and methodology disclosed.
4. Attribution verification
Quotes and attributed statements are verified against their source. Quotes taken from interviews are checked against recorded notes or transcripts. Quotes taken from public material are checked against the original — not a third-party aggregation.
5. Claim review
Subjective or interpretive claims (e.g. "the market is expected to grow", "investors view X as risky") are checked for fairness and accuracy. If a claim is a single analyst's view, the article attributes it to that analyst rather than presenting it as consensus. If a claim is our publication's own analytical view, it is explicitly framed as such.
6. Pre-publish read-through
Before the article goes live, the Head of Editorial (or a designated editor) reads the full piece end to end, checking that sourcing matches the on-page text, that no claim has drifted from its source during editing, and that the byline accurately reflects authorship.
Post-publication
If an error surfaces after publication, we apply our Corrections Policy: public correction notice, dated, at the foot of the article. We do not silently fix errors.
Sources we prefer
- Primary filings and registries: auction house results, SEC/FCA/CySEC filings, land registries, public company reports, central bank statistics.
- Recognised indexes: Liv-ex (wine), Knight Frank (real estate), Chrono24 (watches), Art Basel Reports (art), Bloomberg / Refinitiv (equities), CoinGecko / CoinMarketCap (crypto, used with source caveats).
- Named interviews: with industry professionals, named and dated, on the record.
- Peer-reviewed research and published white papers from recognised institutions.
Secondary aggregators may be used for context, but any specific claim is traced back to a primary source before publication.
Sources we avoid
- Anonymous or pseudonymous online commentary used as a factual source.
- Promotional material from a subject of coverage, cited as neutral fact.
- AI-generated content or chatbot output, used as a factual source.
- Unverified social media posts, used as authoritative claims.
Error reporting
If you find an error we missed: connect@theluxuryplaybook.com. See Corrections Policy for what happens next.