Council Tax / Housing Benefit Overpayment Mess

[notastudent]

Hi Council has written letter to us in April saying they overpaid both benefits and it was their mistake as they should have sent new assesment to us in October. This doesn't really make much sense as they had all info about us, we kept them up to date and even had new assement in January. Both benefits were stopped in January.

The amounts overpaid both appereared as minus figures on the letters so I thought logically that, as they had made a mistake, they weren't expecting repayment.

I have written twice for confirmation of this without reply.

Now we receive an updated council tax bill with the ctb overpayment included.

I am just writing them a letter to complain and point out that we had no way of knowing they made a mistake as;

During the course of our claim we replied to all of your letters, provided all information that was requested, kept you up to date with any changes that may affect our claim and stayed in communication with you.

Can anyone tell me if it is possible for me to request copies of all of the benefit assements they did during the tax year and find out what information they hold on us. Am I allowed to request this info?

I'm asking because I have some of the paperwork but threw a lot out as we were no longer claiming.

Any help appreciated as this is causing me a lot of anxiety.

[Zamzara]

If they are admitting they made a mistake, they can only recover the overpayment if it was reasonable for you to have known the amount was wrong. How much of a difference are we talking about?

[notastudent]

Around £250 council tax and £880 housing benefit.

The Overpayments were from October onwards when my husband started work again.

We had regular contact with them and they even reassesed and continued to award us benefit in January. Then in January they suspended the claim whilst they were waiting for some more information from us. I provided this and kept writing to them to see when our claim would continue with no reply.

Then it's not till april they spring this overpayment on us. We didn't have a clue at all.

[notastudent]

Now we've received an invoice for the housing benefit overpayment, no letter and no replies to any of my letters either!

[notastudent]

Can anyone tell me how to go about doing a S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) against my local council, I've never done one before, so don't know if there is a form or set terminology I should put in a letter.

The council have admitted they screwed up I just want to prove to what extent they screwed up, thus proving I had no way of knowing about the overpayments.

[Esio Trot]

All councils have a complaints procedure.

Go onto their site and download it.

Once you have this, use the procedure. The people who deal with complaints tend to have some degree of intelligence, unlike many of the normal employees who work in the CL/HB departments.

In our council they employ a lady in the Legal Secretary's Department. She, as far as I can work out, is dyslexic and her letters and documents are often undecipherable. I guess she got the job, or was promoted to the position, under some misguided "equal opportunities" policy.

In the same way, there is a chap in the planning department who most days deals with enquiries. His English dialect is almost unintelligible, and when attending I now know to have my query written down, including property address.

I mention the above two cases as examples of the abysmal quality of staff that are employed. You have to fight bureaucracy with bureaucracy, which means having a paper trail of your complaint.

When making a complaint my advice is to number every paragraph, like a report, and if you have a list, to bullet point these a), b), etc.

That way, when they reply you will be able to see if they have dealt with each point you make. For example:

1. I am making a complaint about HB
2. On xx I made a claim. I gave all information needed for the benefit to be assessed.
3. On xx I was told that I was overpaid
4. I wrote querying this on xx

Please explain the following:
a) Why have I not had a reply to my letter dated xx, nor even (if my query was complicated) an acknowledgement of receipt?
b) Why was my benefit stopped without notice on xx
c) How did the overpayment occur when all information requested was provided

You get the drift?

If you work this through, as well as getting the overpayment written off, you might also get an element of compensation.

[surprise]

yes you can request information they hold under the freedom of information act -however they may charge - you can phone the LA and they will tell you if there is a charge -

Also you can request duplicate letters from April 2007 onwards - I also note that you have written twice to request information on the overpayment - It is always best to put your complaint to the Chief Executive as this will bring forth a quicker response.

[notastudent]

Thankyou for both the helpful replies I have received. Esio thanks for the indepth reply, you have given me many ideas. I will let you know how I get on.