Overpayment Refunds
Each year the Treasurer's Office receives millions of dollars in overpayments on real property. Exhaustive attempts are made throughout the year to return these funds to rightful owners. If owners fail to apply for a refund, the monies will be applied to delinquencies, or as prepayments on the property, or forwarded to the State of Utah as unclaimed property.
Overpayments occur as a result of:
- Board of Equalization appeals resulting in decreased taxes
- Refinances, wherein the title company makes one payment and the owner (or their mortgage company) make another
- Duplicate payments by a homeowner; old and new mortgage companies each make a payment
- Errors in application of payments; etc
Sometimes the owner is aware an overpayment exists, as in the case of Board of Equalization adjustments. More often they are unaware such credit balances exist until they receive notification from the Treasurer.
Notification letters indicate that an overpayment exists, and describes the process and information needed to recover the refund. Basically, it requires the taxpayer to establish proof that both payments were made by him, or in his behalf by a third party (i.e., mortgage company, title company, bank, trustee). Such proofs of payment would include copies of checks (front and back), year-end escrow statements, title closing statements, cash register receipts, or bank statements and letters.
It is very important ownership is established before a refund can be issued.
The exception to this policy are Board of Equalization refunds, they are issued to the owner of record at the date the check is issued and require no proof of payment. The reason for this is twofold: first, the checks are prepared in large batches and automatically printed; second, the supporting information for issuing the refund is contained in the original application to the Board.
If refunds are not recovered by the owners, and they cannot be applied towards delinquencies (or as prepayments for next year), they must be remitted to the State Unclaimed Property Division for final disposition. Less than two percent (2%) of overpayments are transferred to the state as unclaimed property each year.
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