IN PLAIN ENGLISH
It answers "if my home had moved in line with prices in my area, what would it be worth now?" It's an average for the area, not a valuation of your home: extensions, condition, the street and the size of the local sample all make a real house differ.
FULL DEFINITION
What you paid for a UK property, carried forward to the latest month by HM Land Registry's UK House Price Index for its local area — the reference Fair Value Discounts compares a property with when it's set to Market reference.
EXAMPLE
Say you paid £250,000 for a detached house in March 2019, and the area's detached index was 80.0 then and 104.0 in July 2026: 250,000 × 104 ÷ 80 = £325,000. If you've entered £300,000 as its value, the reference is £25,000 (+8.3% of your value) above it.
HOW IT'S CALCULATED
Reference = base price × index(latest published month) ÷ index(base month). The base is what you paid and the month you bought, if you've entered them; otherwise the value you entered and the month you last updated it. The index is HM Land Registry's UK House Price Index (Open Government Licence) for the area found from your postcode: your council where it has its own index, otherwise its county, English region or nation. It uses the index for your property type (detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat or maisonette) where the area publishes one at both months, otherwise the all-properties index at both. The index is published monthly about two months behind; a base newer than the latest month isn't moved. England and Wales go back to January 1995, Scotland to 2004 and Northern Ireland to 2005. The index measures prices in pounds, so if your portfolio currency isn't GBP, exchange-rate moves aren't included. The value compared is the property's full value, before its mortgage. The postcode is used once to find the area and isn't saved.
Educational content only. It is not personal financial advice.