Thread: Can they do this?

My daughter recieves Invalidity Benefit and DLA after six years in and out of Hospital with problems resulting from treaqtment for Crohns disease.
She recently was discharged and has taken on a Council Flat. She has a partner now ( the flat is in her name and the Council is aware, as are the Benefits agency that her partner lives there).
She recently received a letter from the Benefits agency stating they are to make deductions from her Invalidity benefit for an unpaid social emergency loan. When she contacted them , she was told her partner had received a social emergency loan and it was not fully repaid. (£120). This loan was received about 3 years before they even met!! but the Agency insist they are able to do this to her Invalidity Benefit?
Her partner has agreed to pay the full balance ( he seems to think the balance had been written off) but how can it be Legal for them to deduct it from my daughters Benefit?
Any advice?

not sure but i dont see how they can
the debt is not in her name
they might be taking into account the total house hold income

is your partner working or on benefit

Not a joint claim- \invalidity benefit is in my daughters name, as is the DLA. The emergency payment was in her partners name, years before they met.

is your partner working

Yes, her partner is working, the benefits agency just seem to have decided to take it from my daughters Invalidity benefit.
Her partner is going to pay the amount off in full by the end of the month, it just seems alarming to think thet they are entitled to deduct money from a benefit such as disablement benefit for a debt she was not resposible for at the time of the loan being made. I cant see how it can be considered "joint and seveally liable"

my reply to this would be
no they cant
its his debt with his signature
nothing to do with you
i would phone the benefits agency ans ask by what authority they can do this

its up to them to write to your partner and request payment

Yes thanks, she has written in . We have all tried to call several times. The general phone operatives were willing to talk after giving a few details such as her date of birth etc. They eventually say that they cant help further and that its in the hands of collections dept- when asked to put me through, they say they wont take calls from the public and offer to e-mail the dept for a call back. Twice I fell for that but of course no call back. The third time I waqs more successfull?. they called back but aking for my daughter. When I explained it was me that req call- they quoted data protection act and continued to talk over anything I said and eventually ended the call.Frustrating.
Will swee if there is any reply to the letter.
Thanks for response

The telephonists are not able to transfer calls, the facility doesn't exist and specific queries have to be emailed to enable other departments to get into the case and have it prepared ready to call the customer, rather than call the customer, faff around placing the customer on hold which frustrates the customer, wastes their time and money whilst they get the relevant info. It makes sense to get all the relevant info ready and then call the customer. If you have not received your call back, I'd have asked to speak to a manager.

They also cannot talk to any third party unless the third party is listed on their notes as an appointee (appointed by the secretary of state). This is because the department gets a lot of calls from people claiming to be the customer or the customer's relative representative, when they are not. There are debt collectors, nosy ex partners, all sorts who try to extract information and they have to be very careful as they have to adhere to the data protection act for security purposes. I've failed a security question once (was asked for my childminders pin number) and they terminated the call, but to be frank I'd rather they not give out data if in any doubt than handed it out to anyone who "says" they have the right to tit. If you need to call again, have your daughter with you. They will ask her questions to verify her identity and ask her permission to discuss it with you, then you can take the call. There is also a clause known as "implicit" consent where if the dept believes you have good reason to have the information and you can answer the security questions, and specific questions about her dealings with DWP, they will discuss it. If they did not offer do this, raise a complaint.

I hope that explains things better. Ok, re this query. "No" is the short answer. They cannot take it from her, not unless she was his partner at the time he claimed it and it was a joint claim that she signed, or unless they are removing it from a joint benefit. Invalidity you say is payable only to your daughter so she should be paying his debts. If your daughter writes in disputing it, what will happen next is they will request the paper file from their storage facility. Once that arrives they will look at the original paperwork. An application form counts for nothing, what they need to look at is the declaration, which states the sum offered, the repayments and the declaration that states she accepts the loan offered (the loan sum must appear) and agrees to pay it back at that rate per week. If the signature on this form is not hers, they cannot take the payments from her and will have to refund any payments she has made so far.

If you STILL get nowhere, get your daughter's MP involved. This happened to me. When I disputed it, it was not with my local office but had gone to the debt management Centre in Manchester. They wrote back with a fob-off that they were not obliged to provide proof of the loan in accordance with guidelines. I wasn't about to pay for anything without proof I owed it, so I emailed my MP. They eventually did send "proof" except the signature wasn't mine, so MP wrote back to them and sorted it out.

Thanks for the info and your thoughts- pretty much what I thought- needed a bit of reassurance I suppose.
She has written in as a form of complaint- no reply as yet.
Thanks once again

Keep us updated, will help if I can - she is not liable for his debt it's fairly straightforward, sounds like they are chancing their hand