Hi, Your dad needs to write to the head office of his last employer requesting all redundancy pay due to him, in the letter he needs to state he is giving them 28 days notice to pay it in full or he will have no alternative but to refer it to an employment tribunal. Send the letter recorded delivery and keep a copy for his records. If the employer fails to respond within the 28 days get a form ET1 from your local CAB office, they would also help you fill it in there. Hope this helps and if your not sure of anything postback.

Andrew Firstly it takes up to 12 - 16 weeks for h/b appeal to take place. There will be an internal review of there original decison, which never usually overturns there decison. This is then sent to the appeal services who will prepare all paperwork (submisson) this paperwork consists of LA reasons for the overpayment, how it came about, why they think you should have reasonabily been expected to have noticed the error, it also includeds copy of your claim for h/b and your appeal letter. When this submisson is sent to you there is an enquiry form in it called a tas1, this needs to be returned signed and dated by you within 14 days or the appeal will be struck out. Prepare well in advance for the tribunal, try to get some one from your local CAB office or free advice agency to represent you during the appeal. If you can not get someone to represent you get back to me nearer the time i will help you prepare the submisson, and you can represent yourself. On sending back the tas1 to the appeal service you will recieve a date for the appeal, usually within the 4 - 6 weeks following the return of the tas1. On the day you will sit before a chairman who is a lawyer, he will question you on your resons for not having seen the error (this you have made clear to me in your last post and i belive is cause enough not to have been reasonably expected you to notice the error, but then on the other hand they may see that your girlfriend could).

Andrew 1 Is this your first claim for housing benefit/council tax benefit? (Have you ever claimed housing benefit before? even at a different address.) sorry can not make the question anymore straight forward. 2 Can a doctor confirm in writing your illnesses?

Hope this can be of use to someone:grin: OFGEM has advised that, in England, Wales and Scotland, if an electricity supply is cut off as a result of severe weather conditions, the usual electricity guaranteed standards do not apply. How much you can claim as a goodwill gesture depends on the severity of the weather conditions. The severity of weather is measured by the number or percentage of households affected: Category 1: £25 if the supply is not re-connected within 24 hours, plus £25 for every further twelve hours until it is re-connected, up to a maximum of £200 Category 2: £25 if the supply is not re-connected within 48 hours, plus £25 for every further twelve hours until it is re-connected, up to a maximum of £200 Category 3: £25 if the supply is not re-connected within x* hours, plus £25 for every further twelve hours until it is re-connected, up to a maximum of £200. *x hours is calculated by a formula, which includes the number of people affected as a percentage of the number of customers of the electricity distributor. If you have waited for more than 24 hours to have your electricity supply re-connected should, in the first instance, contact their electricity supplier. In N. Ireland, Northern Ireland Electricity will reimburse a domestic customer £50 for more than 24 hours without electricity, plus £25 for every 12 hours after this. There is no maximum amount.:grin:

Hi Andrew You need to appeal the decison of the overpayment. You only have 28days from the date at the top of the letter from LA. There is an extension to this 28 days of 12 monthts but only if there is good reason to it being appealed late. Ok i need to know a few things first to see if you would have a chance at a tribunal. 1 Is this your first claim for housing benefit/ council tax? 2 Is there any illnesses/disability?

No not possible sorry, i was just a bit quick to respond to BW and her lack of knowledge with CAB advice currently given. My post was not intended to link you to these files and i am aware that you can not see them but did not have time to cut them before post. Sorry again for the lack of time to prepare my post but i really should be working. lol

The only point i was trying to make seehorse "sorry", was infact to Bookworm. The CAB do everthing that is possible to get the best for there clients and that does include getting unfair back charges back to them.

BW Thought i would keep you up to date with CAB advice, we do advise to reclaim charges, and have a great success rate. Charges 58 It is part of the contract between the bank or building society and the customer that charges can be made for services. These must be set out in the bank's or building society's terms and conditions. 59 Details of the charges must be given when a client becomes a customer of the bank or building society or whenever a client requests them. Under the Banking Code, if any charges are increased or a new charge is introduced, the customer must be personally informed at least 30 days in advance. 60 Charges for services which are not covered by the terms and conditions must be made clear to the client at the time the service is offered or if the client asks about a particular service. 61 Under the Banking Code, a bank or building society must give at least 14 days' notice of the amount to be deducted from a client's current or savings account for charges and interest arising during the charging period. 62 If the client is not clear why a charge has been made, s/he should ask for an explanation and a breakdown of the charge. If the client is still not satisfied and feels that the charge should not have been made, s/he should make a complaint. In addition, senior bank or building society staff may have discretion to waive all or part of a charge, so it may be worth negotiating for a charge to be removed. It may also be possible to challenge excessive or unreasonable charges through the courts. The client should be referred to a specialist adviser if s/he wants to do this. Challenging excessive default charges 62a Creditors, such as banks, credit card and store card companies, may apply a reasonable charge for breaches which are in default of an agreement, for example, for late payment of a credit card bill, exceeding a credit limit or going into an unauthorised overdraft. The default charge should be limited to the actual administrative cost to the creditor of dealing with the breach. Some of the default charges that banks and other credit providers routinely apply have been successfully challenged as excessive. 62b The following steps are intended as a guide for the client to challenge excessive charges. Letters may need to be adapted depending on the client’s circumstances and how much information s/he already has about the charges that have been applied to her/his account. 62c Step One The client needs to know the amount and date of the charges s/he wishes to challenge. S/he can make a claim for a refund of charges paid during the last six years. If the client has not kept all her/his bank statements for this time, s/he will need to write to the bank and ask them to provide this information. The bank must provide this under the Data Protection Act 1998 and, if they do make a charge for it, they cannot charge more than £10. More about asking for information under the Data Protection Act 1998 62d Step Two Once the client has all the relevant information, the next step is to write to the bank and ask them to waive or reduce the charges as a goodwill gesture. Banks are often willing to consider this where the client has been a customer for a long time or has a good record in managing her/his account. Explain any good reasons for the default, highlight any positive aspects of the case, like customer loyalty, and ask the bank to use their discretion in favour of the client. 62e Step Three If Step Two is not successful, the client may need to write a stronger letter pointing out the legal arguments for refunding or reducing the charges. These arguments are likely to be more persuasive if the amount of the charge is large in relation to the amount of the overdraft or balance outstanding, and less persuasive if the amount of the unauthorised overdraft is high, or the client frequently breaches the agreement, for example, by regularly making late payments. The client should consider her/his payment history when putting her/his arguments together. The legal arguments include the following:- the charges applied to the account are unfair under paragraph 1(e) of schedule 2 of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 because the bank has charged an amount which is disproportionately high compared to the amount borrowed; and the amount charged by the bank is an unlawful penalty charge which does not reflect any actual or real loss and which the bank is therefore not entitled to recover (see endnote 1); and the client is entitled to get back the amount of the charge because it has been automatically debited from her/his account, even though the bank was not entitled to the payment. 62f Step Four If the bank still does not agree to refund the charges, the client could take the bank to the small claims court to try to get her/his money back. The arguments in court are the same ones as in Step Three. The client will have to pay a fee to the small claims court which s/he can get back if s/he wins the case. A fee exemption or waiver may apply depending on the client's circumstances. Court action should only be used as a final resort and it is a good idea to get specialist help first. More about small claims More about fee exemptions and waivers 62g Aternatively, the client could make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) which is a free service. The client will need to have attempted to resolve the issue with the bank prior to an approach to FOS. The ombudsman may be able to help if there has been maladministration by the bank or if the charges build up so as to cause financial hardship. If a client reaches a position where s/he cannot repay the debt because of the charges, further charges might be deemed unfair. Any decision of the ombudsman is not binding on the client and therefore s/he can take the matter to court if s/he is not happy with the outcome. Hope this keeps you up to date with the advice that CAB are giving out.