Over the past 12 weeks our weekly income has flucutated quite a bit. My wife was put on the sick at end of March and got SSP plus Occupational Sick Pay. We applied for a re-evaluation of housing and council tax benefits and supplied all pay slips. My wife gets paid weekly in arrears and at the end of the first week she was off, she got paid unexpectedly an annual monthly bonus Wahoo!

The next week her income dropped down to about £120, the next week it increased and then dropped eventually to a consistent level of about £180 gross per week. This together with my ESA gave us a net income of just over £200 per week.

After the re-evaluation we were told intially that we would still need to pay housing rent of about £10 and council tax of about £5 a week. So we used the bonus money to pay the rent in full for two weeks and also the council tax up to date. I later queried it and they re-evaluated it and said no council tax but still have to pay houisng of about £6 per week. We accepted this and I left it.

About a week ago I was tidying up accounts and had a read through the last evaulation and noticed that we had two earned incomes although only one of us was employed.

Took all wage slips back down to their offices and queried it. They could not answer why two incomes and also why our earned income had been averaged out at £220 per week when the average was at least £40 less. They told me that they would need to investigate it and they would phone me back later. (Oh yeah heard that one before).

In the afternoon surprisingly I got a phone call from them and it seemed that a mistake had been made. They had taken the wages received in the first week which included the bonus and then calculated it over a 5 week cycle which brough the average up to £220, but then they had spread the bonus payment over 52 weeks which was the second earned income. Benefits had been calculated as if my wife had received the bous twice in the same week.

Three overpayment invoices were dropped and a council tax refund of nearly £100 was due. In addition we did not have to do a 28 mile round trip to present wage slips as all they required was a form for the employer to complete stating the money that had been paid.

All in all since Nov 2009 we have had several revisions and every time it has turned out that the benefits agency were at fault. All have been in our favour. It makes me wonder how many other people are battling to survive because their benefits have been calculated incorrectedly. Much of the info I picked up from reading various threads on this forum, so thanks to thsoe caggers that supplied info.

See folks - it can be done.

Well done Surfer for being pro active and getting what you are entitled to!

I agree Surfer01 that the council have an innate talent for screwing people out of their money.

Every new financial year year I have the annual ritual of correcting the 'supposed' income which the council use to determine my HB. This year my long-term I.B + age allowance went up to £97.20, however the automatons working for the council decided it was £98.08. I know 88pence/week might not seem a lot, but 88p X 52 weeks @ 65% ("excess of income" reduction to HB) = £29.74/year I would have been "diddled" out of.

Regards, Paul.