Surrey Heath Council Tax 2026

How to read this stock pattern

Here the standard Band D benchmark and the most common property group point to the same part of the distribution. That makes Surrey Heath less sensitive than most authorities to the familiar criticism that Band D is merely a reference property. The stock-weighted amount is still useful: it incorporates the lower and upper bands instead of treating the modal group as the whole area. It should be read as a corpus comparison, not as the bill of a particular address.

Surrey Heath has a broad valuation-band profile: the largest 3 groups are needed before the cumulative share passes half of the stock. No single band dominates the local picture, which makes a one-band headline especially incomplete. The weighted result is useful for comparing this authority with peers, but the spread across 8 published bands matters just as much. A broad mix also means the area-level mean is less representative of any one household than it is in a concentrated council.

Surrey Heath sits in the upper quarter of South East on the stock-weighted ordering, above the regional median of £2,511.00. This narrows the comparison from a UK rank to authorities facing the same broad regional context, while still correcting each one for its different band mix. The placement says the council's average published stock is relatively costly within that peer set; it does not convert the mean into an individual household charge.

Closest housing-stock shape: St Albans

St Albans is the closest full-distribution match for Surrey Heath. The profiles are close rather than identical: 3.8% of dwellings would need to shift between valuation bands for their published shares to align. The comparison therefore tests the whole ladder, not just the largest band.

Four largest band differences

• The largest separation is an upper-band difference at Band E. St Albans records 20.6% of dwellings there, compared with 17.8% in Surrey Heath, so the peer carries more of its stock at that higher rung.
• A smaller distinction is lower on the ladder at Band B: Surrey Heath has 6.8% of dwellings there, against 5.1% in St Albans. That extra lower-band weight pulls its stock profile away from the peer.
• A smaller distinction is an upper-band difference at Band H. St Albans records 2.2% of dwellings there, compared with 1.4% in Surrey Heath, so the peer carries more of its stock at that higher rung.
• A smaller distinction appears in the upper part of the ladder at Band G. Surrey Heath places 13.8% of dwellings there versus 13.0% for St Albans, giving this profile the heavier upper-band tail at that point.

How the wider profile compares

Show every band direction

• Band A leans toward Surrey Heath
• Band B leans toward Surrey Heath
• Band C is closely balanced
• Band D is closely balanced
• Band E leans toward St Albans
• Band F is closely balanced
• Band G leans toward Surrey Heath
• Band H leans toward St Albans

This sequence is read from the lowest published band to the highest.

Other close England matches for Surrey Heath: Hammersmith & Fulham (5.5% redistribution distance); Brentwood (5.9% redistribution distance); Reigate & Banstead (5.9% redistribution distance); Three Rivers (5.9% redistribution distance). Ranked across every published band in the England valuation system, this shortlist shows whether St Albans stands alone or sits in a cluster of similarly shaped authorities.