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DWP Overpayment


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My wife has received a letter from DWP Debt Management about an overpayment for Carer's Allowance which she owes which dates back to January - March 2002.

 

The letter is asking her to pay back the money immediately and giving her the option to contact them to discuss repayment terms. The letter ends in:

What happens next

If we do not hear from you by 03/08/2010 we will consider taking further action to recover this money from you, therefore please do not ignore this letter.

 

Now I am aware that they cannot take court action to recover this money due to the debt being over 6 years old, and the only way they can get the money is by deducting it from benefits (which she currently does not receive).

 

I am guessing that going by the wording in the last paragraph they are aware of the fact that they cannot enforce this debt and are hoping she will just pay up.

 

She is not even convinced that she owe's this money as she thought she had finished claming this benefit back in October 2001, but she is not certain on this.

 

Are there any template letters which I post off to them requesting information of the dates and payments for which she has supposedly received these overpayments, and also requesting proof that she owes this debt. And due to the age of it would it be worth sending a letter stating the fact that it is over 6 years old and has become unenforceable in law. Again, are there any template letters for this?

 

I've seen the Statue Barred template letters but i'm guessing that the wording on this letter would not be suitable for the DWP.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks.

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i am not that convinced that the statute barred laws would be effective here as it is government money we are talking about..i would certainly inquire about dates and payments that these alleged overpayments covered..unfortunately i am more at ease with consumer debt where statute barred would apply..but i have my doubts that as this was an overpayment it would not apply..i know people who have been chased for back council tax going back over 6 years that they have ended up paying so as say not too sure it applies

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I've seen this listed on a few different debt sites:

Benefit Overpayments & Social Fund Loans

 

The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) has 6 years to take action through the courts to recover benefit overpayments and social fund loans. This time starts running from the date of the final decision made on the overpayment and from when the social fund loan was due to be paid. But the DWP are still allowed to make deductions from your benefit for a debt over 6 years old as they don’t need to go to court to do this. This applies to overpayments of benefits such as income support, job seekers allowance, pension credit, housing benefit, council tax benefit and paying back social fund loans.

 

So it looks like the Statue Barred does apply as they cannot take her to court over this, but they can get the money off her in the future through any benefits she may possibly claim.

 

I shall send a letter off, not acknowledging the debt, requesting information on the exact dates of this debt and to provide detailed information on how this debt came about, including proof of any overpayments which were received.

 

Not sure if they will be able to find this information due to the age of it, but maybe that's the best route to take for now.

 

And if they can not provide this information then surely they cannot chase a debt which they have not proof of.

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yep have had a read around myself and found the above but also found other threads that say nay...the problem as i see it..is statute barred seems to refer to debts..this is not a debt but an overpayment of government money..in other words taxpayers money..and we know from experience that this government and successive governments are paranoid about getting money back from people who they say were 'not entitled' to it..even if they couldnt get it from benefits what is to stop them getting it via a deduction from wages? personally i would look first at asking them to prove it..relying on whether they will have the info? i would think they have otherwise they wouldnt be asking for the money?

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Quite true they can only deduct from social security benefits and the law sets

down what they can take supposedly to protect your minimum income, the debt

remains, but is legally statute barred,the only exception is if a CCJ or liability order has previously been obtained. They can a will probably will palm this of to some DCA or pet solicitors such as Fairfax (formerly Eversheds) who will try to collect stat barred or not, if you are contacted do not send Fairfax income/expenditure details as they will misuse and twist it to their benefit, attachment of earnings is for a court to decide,in your case only if a CCJ is in place.

Overpayments from any government dept., local authority are legally debts and become statute barred in the same way as any other debt

Edited by Brigadier 1JCS
Thinking
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  • 4 weeks later...

I received another letter from the DWP today, totally ignoring the letter which I sent out to them.

It states

 

DO NOT IGNORE

About the £*** still owed

We have contacted you about paying back this money.

You must make a payment by 17/8/2010

Please do not ignore this letter. This will not mean you can avoid paying back this money, and you need to contact us to stop any further action being taken. If you cannot afford to pay this money you still need to contact us. We are willing to discuss the amount you pay each month.

You must send any payments to:

Depart for Work and Pensions

PO Box address

What happens next

If we do not hear from you by the above date we will consider taking one of the following actions:

a) Recovering this money through the courts b) Referring your case to a private company for repayment collection.

You may have to pay additional costs if this happens, and your furture credit rating may be affected.

 

In the letter which I sent to them I asked them for details of how this debt came about, including a breakdown of the dates and payments my wife is supposed to owe this money for, and also for proof that she has wrongly received this money by providing copies of any forms which she have supposed to have signed with my signature on.

 

They have not provided any of that information.

 

Does this mean that they do not have any of this information?

 

So what next, shall I just send another copy of the letter to them again stating that they have not provided the information which I asked for and once again ask for proof.

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If you wrote the letter, and it did not contain a signed letter from your wife authorising you to deal with this on her behalf, they likely would have ignored it.

 

I suggest she submits a SAR requesting the information relating to this alledged debt (template in the attachment), this is a legal request which cannot be ignored - but it needs to come from her.

 

She should also send a letter to debt management stating that she does not acknowledge the debt, they have provided no evidence that she is in debt to DWP and until such a time as they do, the debt is in dispute. Add that she has sent a SAR.

dwp sar.rtf

My advice is based on my opinion, my experience and my education. I do not profess to be an expert in any given field. If requested, I will provide a link where possible to relevant legislation or guidance, so that advice provided can be confirmed and I do encourage others to follow those links for their own peace of mind. Sometimes my advice is not what people necesserily want to hear, but I will advise on facts as I know them - although it may not be what a person wants to hear it helps to know where you stand. Advice on the internet should never be a substitute for advice from your own legal professional with full knowledge of your individual case.

 

 

Please do not seek, offer or produce advice on a consumer issue via private message; it is against

forum rules to advise via private message, therefore pm's requesting private advice will not receive a response.

(exceptions for prior authorisation)

 

 

 

 

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The letter I sent was in my wife's name, she did not sign it, just printed her name to avoid them trying to duplicate her signature. So i'm guessing they either don't have proof or just can't be bothered to look for it, and are hoping she will be scared into paying up.

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We're just looking at this SAR form, I assume she needs to fill in the whole form and send it with the letter, ticking all the relevant boxes in Part B (what information we require). What is the difference between Computer records and Clerical records?

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Data controllers are allowed to charge a small fee for responding to a SAR, but I'm pretty sure the DWP doesn't actually impose the charge.

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DWP don't charge for the service - that should be stated on the form in the attachment. A SAR is only restricted to 6 years from when they stop processing data. They must have data (in some form or another) about this otherwise they would not be in a position to write asking for repayment. Though the data they may have may not necesserily prove it's owed.

 

Ask for clerical records too. Computer records only contain the information that DWP inputs in the computerised system. Clerical files contain everything such as claim forms, letters written to DWP, DWP notes etc - everything that won't or can't go into the computer is stored. A clerical file is different to a wholly clerical claim. A clerical claim is where the information cannot be input into the computer, but every claim will have clerical (paper) files - unless they have been destroyed.

 

They want paid, then they have to have some form of evidence which shows that

a) there was an overpayment

b) the overpayment was as a result of the claimant's misrepresentation or failure to disclose.

 

If the overpayment has been caused by DWP or they cannot prove how it was caused then it isn't recoverable unless the claimant volunteers to repay it.

My advice is based on my opinion, my experience and my education. I do not profess to be an expert in any given field. If requested, I will provide a link where possible to relevant legislation or guidance, so that advice provided can be confirmed and I do encourage others to follow those links for their own peace of mind. Sometimes my advice is not what people necesserily want to hear, but I will advise on facts as I know them - although it may not be what a person wants to hear it helps to know where you stand. Advice on the internet should never be a substitute for advice from your own legal professional with full knowledge of your individual case.

 

 

Please do not seek, offer or produce advice on a consumer issue via private message; it is against

forum rules to advise via private message, therefore pm's requesting private advice will not receive a response.

(exceptions for prior authorisation)

 

 

 

 

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Thanks Erika,

The money the DWP are chasing dates back to 2002 which is over 6 years, so is there any point in me sending a SAR to them?

 

Yes, because the 6 years relates to the date they stopped processing data about you. They're obviously still processing your data if they're demanding that you repay an alleged overpayment.

 

Sorry, I mean your wife's data, but same point nonetheless.

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What Antone said. They have data. And your wife is entitled to see it.

My advice is based on my opinion, my experience and my education. I do not profess to be an expert in any given field. If requested, I will provide a link where possible to relevant legislation or guidance, so that advice provided can be confirmed and I do encourage others to follow those links for their own peace of mind. Sometimes my advice is not what people necesserily want to hear, but I will advise on facts as I know them - although it may not be what a person wants to hear it helps to know where you stand. Advice on the internet should never be a substitute for advice from your own legal professional with full knowledge of your individual case.

 

 

Please do not seek, offer or produce advice on a consumer issue via private message; it is against

forum rules to advise via private message, therefore pm's requesting private advice will not receive a response.

(exceptions for prior authorisation)

 

 

 

 

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There is no time limit on recovery of overpayments of benefit.

Was your wife notified of this benefit overpayment back in 2002? I am assuming that there have been previous requests for recovery? Whilst they may be unable to pursue recovery in court, the overpayment will not be written off.

If not, if this is the first notification she has received about this overpayment she still has the right of appeal against the decision. This has to be done within a calendar month of the decision being issued.

If your wife thinks she stopped claiming the benefit and withdrew her claim it may be official error if the payments continued after the notification, and therefore may not be recoverable. (If this is an old overpayment I assume that was investigated when the original letter was issued?)

Due to data protection laws they are unable to provide information to anyone other than the benefit customer, which may explain why you didn't receive any reply to your request..

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You are lucky in a way that your wife is not on benefits, because i had an alleged overpayment of income support taken out of my incapacity benefit with no notice whatsoever!

It was 6 months off being 'statute barred' but because i moved back to my hometown and was back at work i didnt think i needed to tell them

Subsequently as i didnt receive the initial pay us back letter i wasnt allowed to appeal

Funny how theres no time limits for them to chase us but we have always got time constraints placed on us

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She did receive a letter from them in late 2002 about the overpayments, but she queried this with them because she did not understand how the overypayments came about. That was the last she heard from them until late 2009 when she was claiming benefits briefly, they took a couple of payments from her out of her benefits, but shortly after she returned to work so stopped claiming the benefits and they were unable to take any more money from her. We thought she would have received a letter before now asking for the money to be repaid but did not hear anything from them until recently.

 

The letter which we sent to them recently asking for details was sent in my wife's name so they had no reason to ignore it. We've now sent them another letter asking for these details again, not acknowleging the debt and putting the debt in dispute until they can prove otherwise. We've also sent an SAR request.

 

They received the letter on Friday so we shall just wait and see what their next move is, not sure if we will get a reply from them or not.

 

I'm aware they can not make her pay back the money through the courts due to the 6 year gap, but as they can recover it from any benefits she may claim in the future we would be willing to sort out a repayment plan, once they can prove the debt.

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  • 3 weeks later...

My wife received a letter from the DWP yesterday which was replying to the first letter which she sent out. They have enclosed a copy of a letter which was sent to her on 24 August 2005 at an old address which she was no longer living at, so she never received this letter.

 

This letter states:

The Carer's Allowance (CA) Unit was notified on 29/03/04 that you were not engaged in caring for (her father) for at least 35 hours per week. This means that you have been overpaid by £*** from 05/11/01 to 17/03/02 and you now have to pay this money back.

 

On Page 3 of this letter 'Decision Maker's Decision' it states:

As a result of the decision dated 10/12/04 an overpayment has been made from 05/11/01 to 17/03/02 amounting to £***.

The Decision Maker has decided that this overpayment is recoverable from (my wife) because she failed to disclose to the Carer's Allowance Unit the material fact that she stopped caring for (her father) on 29/10/01 or as soon as possible afterwards.

 

Now, we think they have got their facts mixed up as she was still living with and caring for her father up until March 2002, her Mum passed away on 01/11/01 (who her sister was receiving Carer's Allowance for), now we are wondering if they they have got her mother and father mixed up.

 

We shall write a letter to the DWP trying to explain this but will they believe her? And how do we prove it? She is also unable to get in contact with her father as they have not spoken since 2003 and she does not know his address or phone number.

 

She also received a letter from another person in the DWP 3 weeks ago acknowledging the Data Protection Request and that they have 40 days to respond. She is yet to receive this information.

 

So where does she stand now, does she stand any hope of this matter being sorted out or is she going to have to pay it even thou she was entitled to this money?

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My wife has received a letter from DWP Debt Management about an overpayment for Carer's Allowance which she owes which dates back to January - March 2002.

 

an overpayment has been made from 05/11/01 to 17/03/02 amounting to £***.

 

So which is it? Does she owe from January 2002 to March 2002 or does she owe from November 2001 to March 2002? Seems that they cannot make up their minds when the overpayment began.

 

It is within the 6 years for court action, because the decision on the overpayment was not made until 10/12/04.

 

For benefits, the period is from the date the final decision was made on the overpayment, not the final date of payment of the benefit therefore they could theoretically raise a civil action against your wife in regard to this overpayment.

 

It's unlikely that they have got her mother and father mixed up because the person that a claimant receives CA for will be named on the claim and their NI no will also be on the CA claim as the person they care for. Unless the person who notified the DWP has got it mixed up. Someone notified them.

 

What now needs to be established is what evidence they have which shows an overpayment. Effectively what evidence do they have that shows that it is more likely than not that she did stop caring for her father on or around 29/10/01? (This is what they need to have come to the conclusion of overpayment for the respective dates). This doesn't appear to have been provided to your wife - let's hope the SAR provides it.

 

If they take civil action they have to be able to prove that there is an overpayment. They can't just walk into court and say "We were notified by *anon person* that X stopped caring for Y on this date and therefore she was not entitled to CA thereafter".

 

They have to show evidence which will satisfy the judge that on the balance of probability, there is an overpayment and it's for the amount they purport it to be. Before ta claimant goes to court, they must send the respondant copies of evidence that they are going to reply on to prove their case.

My advice is based on my opinion, my experience and my education. I do not profess to be an expert in any given field. If requested, I will provide a link where possible to relevant legislation or guidance, so that advice provided can be confirmed and I do encourage others to follow those links for their own peace of mind. Sometimes my advice is not what people necesserily want to hear, but I will advise on facts as I know them - although it may not be what a person wants to hear it helps to know where you stand. Advice on the internet should never be a substitute for advice from your own legal professional with full knowledge of your individual case.

 

 

Please do not seek, offer or produce advice on a consumer issue via private message; it is against

forum rules to advise via private message, therefore pm's requesting private advice will not receive a response.

(exceptions for prior authorisation)

 

 

 

 

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It seems like that when they originally said January-March 2002 they weren't sure on the exact dates, they probably did not have the details available to them at that time.

 

She is not sure who notified the DWP about her mother passing away, it was either her sister or her father, there's definately been a mix up somewhere.

 

So what now, do we wait for the results to come from the SAR request or does she write another letter to them attempting to explain the situation?

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