Understanding the estimate

Methodology

Typical Home Impact compares an area's median sale price with an estimated gross Council Tax bill. It is a representative-area comparison, not a bill for a particular address.

The scenario

Illustrative 0.48% property tax — uncapped applies an annual charge of 0.48% to the selected property value. It assumes this replaces Council Tax for an owner-occupied primary residence and, in supported purchase comparisons, also replaces Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT). It does not estimate a tenant's change in personal costs.

The rate is informed by Fairer Share's proposal. Transition caps, deferral, second-home rules and changes in owner/occupier liability are excluded. This illustration is neither an enacted tax nor a complete implementation of that proposal.

Three ways to compare

Ongoing owner

Compare one year of Council Tax with one year of the illustrative property tax.

Annualised ownership

Compare Council Tax plus purchase SDLT divided by the chosen ownership period with the annual scenario bill. The initial assumption is 20 years. This is a simple allocation, excluding growth, future tax changes, financing and discounting.

Purchase year

Compare Council Tax plus the whole purchase SDLT payment with the scenario's annual bill. This describes first-year cash cost; it has no recurring monthly equivalent.

Change equals scenario cost minus current cost: a negative figure means lower estimated cost; a positive figure means higher estimated cost. Monthly equivalents divide the unrounded annual result by 12. Percentage change uses the current cost as its denominator and is unavailable when that cost is zero.

How the area baseline is estimated

The all-property median price is a proxy for value. It describes homes sold during the published period, while Council Tax stock describes a different population. The median is not revalued to today's prices and is not an individual property's valuation.

We weight Council Tax bands A–H by the area's published dwelling counts, using the statutory ratios to Band D: 6/9, 7/9, 8/9, 9/9, 11/9, 13/9, 15/9 and 18/9. The result is multiplied by the authority's full average Band D charge, including local and major precepts.

This is estimated gross Council Tax using the authority-average charge. It does not recover each parish's exact bill or include personal discounts, exemptions, premiums or Council Tax support. The weighting denominator is the sum of the included band counts, which can differ from the separately rounded published total.

Council and neighbourhood results use independent price and stock inputs. Council results are not averages of neighbourhood medians. These typical-home changes cannot be summed to estimate total revenue, household gains or housing wealth. Property-type comparisons remain unavailable until compatible price and stock categories are validated.

The dates describe different periods

• Sale prices: 1 October 2024–30 September 2025.
• Property stock: 31 March 2025.
• Council Tax: 1 April 2026–31 March 2027.
• Geography: 2021 neighbourhoods (MSOAs), May 2025 councils (LADs).

Combining these inputs does not make them simultaneous observations. Official geographic codes and the pinned parent lookup establish the joins. Unresolved cross-authority assignments require review before a neighbourhood estimate is shown; a display polygon does not determine a postcode's taxing authority.

Unavailable means unavailable

An unexplained dash in a required VOA stock cell withholds the area estimate. Missing or suppressed prices, missing charges and unresolved geography also prevent a numeric comparison. We preserve these states rather than treating missing values as zero or substituting a council-wide result.

The England inventory includes 296 councils and 6,856 neighbourhoods. Source gaps, incompatible geography and invalid boundaries remain explicit; see the coverage page for available counts. A published numeric median meets ONS's minimum publication rule, but no transaction-count or confidence score is available in this release.

The map's neutral band is −£100 through +£100 per year, inclusive. It is a visual threshold, not a confidence interval. Monthly and percentage displays retain that annual classification. Unavailable areas have a separate style, and the result panel keeps the actual amount and direction within the neutral band.

Your own value and bill

Optional personal inputs replace the selected-home value or annual Council Tax baseline only. They do not change the area estimate or map colours. An unavailable area can support a separate personal comparison only when every missing dependency is replaced by a valid input. Resetting returns to the original area estimate, including its unavailable state.

Purchase-tax scope

Purchase comparisons use the reviewed England SDLT rules effective 1 April 2025, checked on 26 September 2026. The selected property value is assumed to be the entire chargeable consideration. Supported scenarios assume UK-resident individual buyers, one main residence, no additional-property higher rates, and a freehold or existing assigned lease.

First-time-buyer relief requires every purchaser to meet HMRC's conditions and the purchase price to be no more than £500,000. It does not silently become a standard calculation above that limit. Non-resident, company, trust, partnership, shared-ownership, mixed-use, linked or multiple-property, and new-lease cases are outside scope. Selecting a scenario is not a determination of eligibility. See HMRC's residential rates and first-time-buyer conditions.

This application is an England data preview with incomplete coverage. See data sources and coverage for the pinned editions, credits and data limitations, or return to the map.