Martin Lewis urges anyone who has moved house since 1993 to check for council tax refund

MARTIN Lewis has urged anyone who has moved house since 1993 to check if they’re eligible for a council tax refund.

You could get more than £100 back if your account was in credit when you moved.

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According to an investigation by Moneysavingexpert, there’s at least £230million overpaid council tax unclaimed.

Martin Lewis said you’re most likely to be eligible for a refund if you moved out of a council area in the last 29 years and weren’t paying by direct debit.

For example, many people aren’t aware they pay council tax a month or year ahead, so you could be in credit when you move home.

If you pay a year’s worth of council tax in 10 instalments for the period between April and March, but move out in February, you’ve overpaid by more than a month.

You might have already been given a refund when you closed the account, but some councils don’t automatically do this.

Another reason why you might be owed a refund is if you forget to cancel a payment.

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For example, you might forget to cancel a direct debit or standing order and continue paying after you’ve moved out.

Finally, you could get a retrospective discount if the property you lived in is rebanded.

If the new owner or tenant gets the council tax band lowered, that means you overpaid and you might have credit applied to your closed account.

How can I check if I’m owed a refund?

Many councils will accept claims from as far back as 1993, when council tax was first established.

But it depends on the council and some will limit this to six years if they’ve tried to let you know about the credit in the past.

Some councils will let you claim by filling in an online form, which you should be able to find on Google.

However, you might need details such as your old council tax number.

If you haven’t got that to hand, you’ll have to ring your council to find out how to make a claim.

You can find local authority contact details by searching on Gov.uk.

A couple managed to get more than £8,000 of council tax refunded after challenging what band they were on.

Another Brit got £7,625 back after discovering they’d been on the wrong council tax band for 25 years.

As many as 400,000 homes are potentially in the wrong council tax band,

This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk