Over-payment Refunds
Each year the Treasurer's Office receives millions of dollars in over-payments on real property. Exhaustive attempts are made throughout the year to return these funds to rightful owners. If owners fail to request a refund, the funds will be applied in the following order - to their delinquencies, as prepayments on their property, or forwarded to the State of Utah as unclaimed property.
Over-payments occur as a result of:
-
Board of Equalization (BOE) appeals resulting in decreased taxes
- Refinances, wherein the title company makes one payment and the owner (or their mortgage company) makes a duplicate payment
- Duplicate payments by two members of the home
- Old and new mortgage companies each make a payment
- Errors in application of payments
- Etc.
Sometimes the owner is aware an over-payment 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
Notification letters indicate that an over-payment exists, and describes the process and information needed to recover the refund. Basically, it requires the taxpayer to provide proof that they made both payments directly or that it was made on their 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.
Board of Equalization Refunds
Board of Equalization refunds are the exception to this policy, 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.
Unrecovered Refunds
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 over-payments are transferred to the state as unclaimed property each year.