Hello Andrew, I have been fighting over a housing benefit overpayment now for 2 years. I also had bailiffs round for the council tax element and did have to pay it, I have also been paying a proportion of my housing benefit back to the benefits service whilst all the hearings go through. This leaves a shortfall in my rent and I was advised to approach the benefits service for a discretionary payment to cover the shortfall. My counterclaim went to Appeal and they ruled that I could have "reasonably been expected" to notice the error and that the onus is on the claimant even though it is a local authority error. I am self employed and had been claiming maternity allowance when I had my baby. Despite supplying them with all my accounting records and tax returns etc. and telling them how long my maternity allowance was for and that my income would return to the calculations prior to giving birth they continued basing my payments on maternity allowance. They admitted this error but said I had still been overpaid as they did not take previous years losses into consideration. I am now facing a £5000 repayment bill despite having had no money and all otehr benefits services recognising that previous years losses create no income in following years that do have profit. These include Inland Revenue, Tax Credits and Legal Aid. It is a loop hole for the Benefits Service whose guidelines are not in-keeping with other means tested benefit guidelines. By refusing to acknowledge pervious years losses they do not recognise nil income which means a shortfall in my rent, a large bill and potential homelessness. There is no way I could have known that the Benefits Service guidelines fell out of sync with legal aids and tax credit or that they missed this when I had given them the figures for previous and current years. My case has now gone onto an independant tribunal as my Solicitors have argued that the "reasonable expectation" was subjective NOT objective and that this is "An Error In Law" Who knows what will happen - I feel this is now in the hands of a tangled bureaucratic paper-swapping system that has little to do with the fact that I did or didnt have any money to cover rent and entitlement. However, if you are low income then you may get legal aid and someone else to sift through the mountains of notices that benefits services send you - often wrong and always in duplicate or triplicate making it very difficult to understand even with a legal background. I have been prejudiced against for having shown initiative and intelligence but I felt confused and drowning in the sheer volume of communication that often contradicted from the Hackney Benefit Service. Perhaps if you are able to prove your illness and reading difficulties it might save you. GOOD LUCK! it is a minefield and I do feel Solicitors might drag it out but do act as a bit of a sound board so you don't have to deal with endless call centres!

Hello I'm new but have lots of issues, gripes and seriously bad experiences with Hackney Council over council tax and housing benefit. I will start from today and work backwards: 6 weeks ago I was sent an adjustment notice telling me that I had overpaid and was in credit by £308.43. Last week I got a new bill for the next financial year confirming this as the decision. I have not received a refund. I called today and was told a number of points: 1 - (they) were currently at the end of their finacial year and that was holding up an y payments 2 - (they) were dealings with bills owed first 3 - sorry but because of the finance department dealing with end of financial year accounts it would take them another 2 weeks to deal with it 4 - they would need to check with Housing Benefit that this calculation was correct I asked to speak to a senior colleague Miss Edwards: 5 - she then asked me had I made a claim for my money - I said no and said there was nothing on the form that said I needed to. She then said 6 - the refund claims procedure was manual and they had to wait until I claimed manually before they could send the form manually which would then be dealt with manually before reaching the finance department who would raise a cheque but she couldn't say how long that would take and that it would be at least 3 weeks because of the financial year end. I pointed out that if I owed them I would have had a bailiff round before now and was taht a manual process. No she said 'that process is automated". 'Seems unfair" I said, "well that's the way it is and there's nothing I can do" she said. I then said I was recording teh conversation and she got upset and said that was unfair and I was interceting onto her private life. Tried to transfer me to a senior colleague and tried to get my contact details to call me back (they never call) back. I said No and I wanted to speak to somoeone in finance about when I could get my money back. Eventually I was passed through to Miss Playy - Quality and Development Officer who said she was just walking out the door and had no computer on, that the database for finance and refunds was different fromthe council tax accounts so there was nothing she could do and would call me tomorrow morning on my mobile and took my account number. I have had a visit from a bailiff due to council tax when the housing benefit service wasn't communicating with council tax and it went to court unbeknown to me and a bailiff came in listed all my belongings and made a list of threats and options open to me. I paid the whole lot by debit card putting me over my overdraft. A week later I got the net money back but not interest, no bank charges no apology. Single-mother, no money, claiming benefits for very good reasons. Any advice on getting my money back from them?

Hello I'm new but have lots of issues, gripes and seriously bad experiences with Hackney Council over council tax and housing benefit. I will start from today and work backwards: 6 weeks ago I was sent an adjustment notice telling me that I had overpaid and was in credit by £308.43. Last week I got a new bill for the next financial year confirming this as the decision. I have not received a refund. I called today and was told a number of points: 1 - (they) were currently at the end of their finacial year and that was holding up an y payments 2 - (they) were dealings with bills owed first 3 - sorry but because of the finance department dealing with end of financial year accounts it would take them another 2 weeks to deal with it 4 - they would need to check with Housing Benefit that this calculation was correct I asked to speak to a senior colleague Miss Edwards: 5 - she then asked me had I made a claim for my money - I said no and said there was nothing on the form that said I needed to. She then said 6 - the refund claims procedure was manual and they had to wait until I claimed manually before they could send the form manually which would then be dealt with manually before reaching the finance department who would raise a cheque but she couldn't say how long that would take and that it would be at least 3 weeks because of the financial year end. I pointed out that if I owed them I would have had a bailiff round before now and was taht a manual process. No she said 'that process is automated". 'Seems unfair" I said, "well that's the way it is and there's nothing I can do" she said. I then said I was recording teh conversation and she got upset and said that was unfair and I was interceting onto her private life. Tried to transfer me to a senior colleague and tried to get my contact details to call me back (they never call) back. I said No and I wanted to speak to somoeone in finance about when I could get my money back. Eventually I was passed through to Miss Playy - Quality and Development Officer who said she was just walking out the door and had no computer on, that the database for finance and refunds was different fromthe council tax accounts so there was nothing she could do and would call me tomorrow morning on my mobile and took my account number. I have had a visit from a bailiff due to council tax when the housing benefit service wasn't communicating with council tax and it went to court unbeknown to me and a bailiff came in listed all my belongings and made a list of threats and options open to me. I paid the whole lot by debit card putting me over my overdraft. A week later I got the net money back but not interest, no bank charges no apology. Single-mother, no money, claiming benefits for very good reasons. Any advice on getting my money back from them?