Thank you to everybody for their advice. I have made some progress, the council are reassessing the claim again and have sent me a letter to say they are halting recovery of the overpayment. However I have now received two letters, one from the housing to say the entire amount is now due, and another from the Council tax to say that if I don't pay within 7 days it will go to the Magistrate. I called them and they said there are no notes on the system about halting the overpayment and if I can't afford to pay it to let it go to the Magistrate and then fill in an income and expenditure sheet and an affordable amount can be arranged. This doesn't seem right to me, how can they take such action on a disputed overpayment before they have finished re-assessing it? Is there any reason I shouldn't do as they've suggested? My only alternative is to put the payments on my credit card as I simply don't have the £400 a month the council tax want. FYI The actual monthly council tax amount due is only £122 which I have paid, the rest is made up of the overpayment.

Sundry expenses was for things I wasn't really sure where to put, but I could have just have easily put them in a different category had I known they disallow this one. I am making notes of what you have advised me and I shall get underway with writing my complaint. Thank you!

Thank you for the reply. They have disallowed Depreciation, Research and Training and Sundry expenses, I can I suppose understand depreciation but not the other two things as these were genuine business expenses. One year they have missed off Postage and stationery, other categories the figures are just incorrect, and for 14/15 they've actually put we had £6000 less turnover than we did. The whole thing is littered with errors and no explanations of why certain things are disallowed. They've worked out the national insurance rates and these are slightly wrong but they only accounted for one person not two, then they've calculated how much tax and class 4 contributions we've paid even though this was nil each year as we didn't earn enough. even though some errors are in our favour I have pointed everything out. I had provided them with accounts and also the HMRC submitted returns I'm confused about how they've made all these errors Thank you for your clearheaded advice about what to do, it's very hard to be rational when you're feeling so scared and defensive.

In 2013 I started claiming HB, both myself and my husband are self employed. We had only just set the business up in 2012 following him being made redundant and me having a baby. For the first 3 tax years the business made a loss (2010, 2013, 2014). In January 2017 they wanted to reassess us again , I made up the books (I was doing this anyway for the Jan 31st deadline) and found we had made a small profit, which was reduced by the tax losses brought forward. I then also made up the next lot of accounts when the new tax year started in April. The council have reassessed and said we were overpaid and we owe them around £9500 in HB and £3500 in CT, plus we have now accrued £400 in rent arrears while this is being sorted out. As far as I can see the problem / over payment has been caused by the council using different figures than the tax man, for example they have disallowed certain expenses which have left me scratching my head. I had no way of knowing what they would or wouldn't allow, and on top of this they seem to have made up a lot of the figures. I called shelter and they said they couldn't help, I called CAB who said from what I told them I need to get a specialist solicitor, but I have no idea how much this will cost and I have no savings, I live week to week on our low income. 've written to the council, and copied their own letter and written corrections next to all of their figures. This making me feel sick to my stomach, I have no way of paying back what they want, plus I think it's incorrect. I psyched myself up to phone first thing but they aren't open until this afternoon. I just can't believe when I've been 100% straight and always notified them of any changes that I'm now £14,000 in debt. Does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing? Is there anything specific I should ask or say when I do speak to them?

Thankyou for the advice, so far the problems are only with the member of staff who deals with the wages. I have reported it all to our boss who has taken statements from myself and colleagues, if it isn't all resolved by Monday I will be phoning HMRC myself. It's just good to know that I don't have to give details about the tax credits, I think they are trying to dig themselves out of the hole they have made, not sure how this info would help them though. When I know more I can update this post.

Sorry don't know what a p800 is? With regard to the tax etc it's all been reported and investigated, so I just have to wait for the outome of that. Everything I do is above board, i've worked for long enough to know something is not right here. So can I clarify thats its not normal or a requirement for an employee to tell an empoloyer what tax credits they claim?

Well I will ask but I have to bide my time, so far I am ignoring them. Something isn't right, they haven't been sending payslips out , no p60 for two years and my tax has stayed the same despite the allowance rise in April. I'm just trying to work out whats going on with regards to them asking me about the tax credits....

Is this normal? Do they have any right to know this?

Hi Fen, I got notification of my parcel yesterday, I phoned the depot as its too far for me to drive also and disputed the parcelforce clearance charge. They put me through to head office who reluctantly said I could pay just my duty, vat etc BUT they will be sending me a seperate invoice for the parcelforce clearance fee. I said 'fine' as I have no intention of paying it. Today my parcel was delivered. Success i'd say!!

Hi I have read these posts with interest, I am expecting a delivery of goods from America that I ordered but they are sending it in 2 packages much to my dismay as one item was not in stock. Now I feel a bit more hopeful that I won't have to pay the clearance fee twice or at all if I challenge them (Parcelforce). What I want to know is can you only challenge it in the depot itself or over the phone as well? I ask because the depot is so far away that it is uneconomical for me to pick up the parcel even if the charges were waivered.

thanks for the reply, fingers crossed I get somewhere!

There are lots of mistakes on my current award notice. I have been giving all the correct info as circumstances have changed. I have copies of letters I sent them and most replies from them. I even have a letter from August where they apologise for the mistakes and tell me that they have amended our claim, but now it appears that they didn't. After both losing our jobs in November we are now faced with an overpayment as again tax credits did not update our records to reflect unemployment until this month. Can I write to them and ask them to look at the whole year again or do I need to fill in the appeals form?

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.

Ok I wrote back to debt collection agency 'Credit Resource Solutions' It is with some puzzlement that I have received your letters. Please can you explain exactly what ‘debt’ you are referring to? If as you say it is in regards to an insurance policy please can you send me the full details of this policy. As far as I’m concerned I only hold one insurance policy with M&S which is paid by DD and paid up to date. I received a letter back 28/04/04 from CRS Further to your letter of 18th April, I can now advise that this debt is in relation to car insurance taken out with prestige. The car in question is a ......... The poilcy was incepted on 16/10/07 and cancelled on 14/11/07. Hopefully this will resolve any queries you may have. So I replied; Prestige is fully aware that my car insurance policy with them ended on the 15th October 2007, they were informed in no uncertain terms on the same day that I did not wish to renew with them as they were unable to accept my changes in circumstances. Prestige are also fully aware that on that same day I took out alternative insurance with M&S, they have on more than one occasion been presented with proof of this insurance. I would kindly ask you to discontinue chasing this so called ‘debt’ that doesn’t actually exist, and I will view any subsequent letters or phone calls requesting payment to be harassment. Now I've received a letter from Scotcall debt collecting services demanding payment. I've never heard of scotcall, does anyone know if they are a different company to CRS? Any ideas what I should do next???

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.