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Around 2 years ago my partner and I moved into our first flat together.
We had a tough few months, several things went wrong and at one point we were both out of work, and both claiming job seekers allowance. This was probably for about 2 or 3 months. We were also claiming housing benefit.
After about 3 months I got a job. We ended our claim for job seekers allowance, and sent a letter to the council (who deal with housing benefit) explaining that we were no longer claiming job seekers allowance as I was now in full time employment, but that as only one of us was working full time would like to still continue claiming housing benefit, or at least part of it. We said if there were any problems to contact us.
Nobody contacted us so we assumed everything was OK...things were pretty tight, and my partner wasn't able to work for a while due to health problems, so we survived on my salary as our only income.
Then out of the blue we received a letter from the council saying that they were no longer paying us Housing Benefit, and that they had been overpaying us for a while, and therefore we were due them over £4000!
Anyway, it turns out they never received our letter...or so they say...
We just accepted it and started paying rent ourself, and we assumed that would be the end of it. We thought it had been sorted out with the council.
However, a few days ago out of the blue my partner received a "Summary Cause Summons" saying that we had to go to court regarding the money we owed them.
Now we are confused! Initially when we contacted the council the lady on the phone was quite rude and said that we had committed benefit fraud by not telling the council of our new circumstances. When I said to her we had, we sent them a letter at the same time we informed the job centre of my new job, she totally dismissed it.
But now someone has said to us it isn't really our fault that they never received the letter, we thought we did everything right in informing them of our new circumstances, so if they ended our claim and are claiming the money they paid us is an overpayment, that isn't our fault. They also said that since we have been paying rent ourselves, that we should be able to have some sort of back claim?
I'm all confused! We're slightly worried too, don't know what to do as the council seem to be intent on painting a bad picture of the situation when we try talk to them. What should we do?
Sorry to hear about the allegation made against you.
I suppose from your statement that you didn't keep a copy of the letter you sent them informing of your change of circumstance or that it was done by recorded delivery?
I would assume the council will have to take it on face value that if you have nothing to prove you did send them the information, they have nothing to prove you didn't.
As to the bill I would suggest you look to your local Citizens Advice Bureau
In any event I would turn the tables on them and make a complaint as it isn’t your fault they did not get the letter.
The website encourages complaints due to these reasons (amongst others) which seem to fit your circumstances:
Delays
“You should consider complaining if you have had to wait too long for a claim to be decided, for a reward to be changed, or for an explanation to be given. Organisations which administer benefits or tax credits usually have target times for deciding a claim. These may be on display in the local office, there may be a leaflet about their target standards of service, or you can ask to see them.”
Inefficiency
“You should consider complaining if an office has been inefficient. If benefit or tax credit case papers are lost, payments stop by mistake or you are under or overpaid benefit or tax credits because the office has made a mistake, you should complain. Even if you are repaid the correct balance of an underpayment, you may lose out financially and be inconvenienced by not receiving the correct money for a period of time. Overpayments which have to be repaid can also cause financial difficulty and distress.”
I also found this about overpaid tax Credits, I wonder if the same would apply to Housing Benefit – anyone know? As it says if HMRC take more than 30 days to act upon the information they will recover only the money overpaid during the first 30 days – is there something similar for other benefits which have been overpaid?
If you’ve been paid too much tax credit, the overpayment will be calculated from the time that your circumstances changed. However, if you report a change of circumstance and HMRC takes more than 30 days to take it into account, they will only recover any money overpaid during the first 30 days. The rest will be written off.
Housing Benefit...Please Help!
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