Martin Lewis says one form can get people £176 council tax refund

Martin Lewis has urged UK households to come forward for a £176 refund on their council tax bills. BBC Sounds and ITV star Mr Lewis says about £141m of overpaid Council Tax credit belonging to 800,000 homes is currenly up for grabs.

“To reclaim, you just go onto the council’s form or you call them up," Mr Lewis said. “But please don’t clog them up unnecessarily. This is quite specific.” Martin continued: “These are primarily for people who moved into a different council area since 1993 and were NOT paying by Direct Debit (most people do pay by Direct Debit).

“Because then they couldn’t contact you if they owed you money. So why may you be owed? Well you paid in advance, you’re paying on 10 months, you had a couple of months left, you moved out early, or you forgot to cancel your payment, or the person who moved in after you got re-banded and you were actually owed money off the back of that.

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“So have a look at that; scout your old house, remember what band you were in, if it’s lower now, you may well be owed money. But don’t just do this speculatively.” Martin added: “Final note, in England, if you’re paying 10 monthly, some people love it because they get a two-month holiday at the end, some people hate it for budgeting.

“You have a legal right to shift the paying to 12 monthly instalments. In Scotland and Wales you can often do it as well.” Many councils' forms require you to have your old Council Tax reference number (you should find this on a previous bill), and some forms Money Saving Expert have seen are long.

But the advantage of doing it this way is that if you find you ARE owed, you won't need to do anything else to reclaim.