Martin Lewis urges homeowners to do check after £20,000 success

Martin Lewis urges homeowners to do check after £20,000 success The savings expert said he had heard many similar success stories Martin Lewis has urged home owners to check if they could be owed hundreds of pounds in cash. He shared a success story of someone who expects to save £20,000 off their bills thanks to following his advice. A fan wrote into this BBC podcast to share how they had managed to get their council tax band lowered. They explained: "I followed your advice and it has been accepted. I dropped one tax band on council tax band, and I'll be saving over £500 a year. Since this is my final house purchase, I could easily see it being a £20,000 saving over the next 40 years." Mr Lewis said this was "wonderful to hear", saying that the has "so many council tax successes". 'Really big money' The consumer expert said these happy tales are always good to hear as "they're always really big money". He went on to explain just how widespread this issue is. Mr Lewis told listeners: "The basic premise here is 400,000 homes in England and Scotland are likely to be in the wrong band - many too high a band - because they still haven't been updated since the 1991 second tier valuation that happened back then." Fortunately, the consumer advocate has a "system" for how to check and challenge your band. Mr Lewis explained the two steps you need to go through. He said: "First of all, are you in a higher band than neighbours in similar or preferably identical properties? You can check that via gov.uk council tax checker. You can check your band and other properties' bands there." If you are in a higher band than similar properties in your area, then the second step is to do a valuation check. This is important as it will confirm that it is you who is in too high a band, and not your neighbour who in fact needs to come down a band. Free online tools It could cause some tension with your neighbours if you challenge your council tax band and ultimately you stay the same while their bill is increased. Explaining how to do this valuation check, Mr Lewis said: "You then want to do a valuation check, which effectively is working out what your property was worth in 1991. There are free tools online that can do that for you." He said once you have these details confirmed, the "real work" starts as you need to get your application in for your band to be lowered. For properties in England and Wales, there is an online service on the gov.uk website to challenge your council tax band. If your property is in Scotland, you need to submit your challenge to an assessor based in your local Valuation Joint Board or council. You can find the details of your local assessor on the Scottish Assessors' Association website.