Hmm ok cheers for that. Not too sure then, the course he wants to do is BTEC diploma level 2. It says BTEC National Diploma, National Certificate and First Diploma still get child benefit. but.. Diploma of Higher Education doesn't. Hoping his would come under the first one?

My 18 year old son leaves 6th form this year, he is talking about going to college for a year, full time art/design course. Will I still get child benefit/tax credits & housing benefit with him as a dependent or is 18 the cut off point?

No, I would go to the interview. It's an informal interview by the looks of it, you'd know if it was an interview under caution. The informal ones are usually done by compliance rather than any fraud dept. It's possible they know about the work, but they'll also likely know it's under the 20 pounds, they may kick off about you not notifying them but you wont actually have been over paid so don't panic.

Manager came home to you? Are you living with your manager? They shouldn't keep them, but you may have to keep on at them to return them at times. My LA kept my accounts for nearly a year, even though I asked on the phone twice to have them back. I only got them back in the end by literally asking for them when I was there one day for another matter.

You said you didn't contact them, your council I mean. DWP/JSA is not the council.

At the moment you think paying it is the lesser of 2 evils, but believe me, once the dust has settled & you're tied in to paying back something you shouldn't for years, gets you a bit bitter tbh.

Sounds like they have sold the debt to Advantis. You may have been better off ignoring them, I was caught off guard a couple of years ago when I had ignored their letters, they kept calling me though, luckily it was past 6 yrs & I laughed & told them to take me to court. never heard from them again.

Well said

It's rare for magistrates to give custodial sentences.

When you claim disability benefits they ALL require claimants to let DWP know if the condition improves. If that requirement wasn't on the application form you signed when you have ever renewed the claim, I would argue the fact in court. If they are prosecuting for not notifying a change in circs, you would need to have knowingly not notified them for you to be guilty. It wont be because of working. People can work on DLA.

It's no more complex than this from what Martin Lewis said anyway. If someone has been paying rent for a 2 bed property, it's not suddenly going to become a 1 bed unfortunately.

I was thinking it may be a better thing than just leaving it up to ATOS? But it's not up my street at the moment touch wood wont be for a while anyway. Just thought people may want to see the link.

The only things I can think of that you need to take along are every little bit of proof you can lay your hands on to show he has been living somewhere else because they really do dig their heels int. The court thing & them still saying you're a couple are totally separate things. Someone can be found not guilty in court & still be expected to pay back what they see as an over payment. Yep, for real. Probably not something you need to look into at the moment though.

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/practice-income/gps-to-be-paid-33-to-assess-eligibility-for-new-disability-benefit/20002594.article#.UWg_RZOsiSo

If I try & see it from their point of view, I get where they are coming from when they remove all emotion & finer detail. It must be a devil of a job to sort the genuine from the not. But yes I know what you're saying about being honest. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I had a compliance officer here 2 years after I came off IS & started working part time, to check all details were correct. And it became obvious quite quickly that they had based my housing benefit on a wrong income. She did see the look on my face & said she could see I was oblivious to it & after probably one of the worst couple of weeks of my life, it was all over & I just had to pay back an over payment. But I didn't think for one minute it had all gone wrong as I had given them everything they had asked for when I started working including a works contract with hours & pay on. I didn't even have to start working, my youngest was still under the age when I needed to! I thought I would be better off financially. That was where life went a bit crud tbh, I didn't do debt before I turned 40. I hadn't even ever had a credit card. So I do have a certain amount of distaste towards my LA, probably always will have. The whole thing ended up scaring me enough to quit claiming, neglect my children & take on extra hours at work getting up at 3am so I could get home in time to take them to school. Just so I didn't have to have anything to do with housing benefit. I did that for over a year before I couldn';t afford it anymore because of the rise in the cost of living & my rent going up. So I started claiming again last April. But even now, I have under estimated my weekly income, I am now self employed. And keep it that way because I would rather stick red hot needles in my eyes than go through another IUC & have to pay back £1600. Because the next time it may happen I will not be able to afford to pay it back. I took out a loan to pay that one back. Because I had cancelled my housing benefit claim in the end they wouldn't accept less than 100 quid a month to pay the over payment back, the loan was only 35 a month so I opted for that. Interest was better than 65 pounds less than a month to live on. So the only thing I would say is if you genuinely haven't done this, don't bow to them like I did, fight them...

Don't be alarmed if they have bank statements already there hun. That can shock people sometimes.

Blimey I would have to sort out mountains of emails & facebook messages to prove all the quotes, progress photos of the custom work I am making for them that I send to them, taking the pictures alone can take an hour a week, a months accounts can take up most of a day a month. Sounds like we're all heading for a fall. That's ok, i'll quit working 12 hours a day self employed, go work in Tescos for 16 hours a week & they'll still have to pay me the same in tax credits, I just wont have to work as hard! lol

Tax credit over payments & DWP/LA over payments are a totally different ball game by the way. I don't think I have ever heard of anyone that has blatently committed tax credit fraud ever end up in an IUC (although of course it can happen, it's just as rare as hens teeth) yet someone in your situ, perfectly innocent is hauled in. Doesn't make sense does it. You may be able to work out what you would have been entitled to claim by using the turn2us benefit calculator. That may give you an indication of what you have been over pad IF they decide you have been LTAHAW. Which is living together as husband & wife or LT..living together.

If you don't attend, they could send the police round. Worst case scenario. But it wont go away. If I was working in that office though I would love to cuddle the bubs whilst you were in the IUC. If they are insisting you go on that date, you have no choice but to take her.

The only benefit really in taking a brief is they will disclose to the brief the reason for the IUC before you even set foot in the office yourself. But from what I gather you already know the reason? You can however take someone along with you, as long as they aren't involved in the reason you are there. They wont be able to speak for you either (although they may end up talking about football in the end, long story lol) The main reasons for the IUC are to show you your application form & ask if it's you that filled it in & signed it, ask if you understood the form, let you know any problems they have come up with & to listen to your side, then use all that in court if it ever ended up that far. As IUC's are done for so many different reasons, it's hard to advise anyone really what will happen at them & what you should do. But there's not really much point in someone saying 'no comment' denying everything etc, if they are guilty, because that's probably the worst thing that would go against them in court, & that tape would be used in court. Better off being honest, they are pretty cluey people these investigators & half the time can see if someone is being genuine. Although it isn't down to them the outcome, they will have some input. It's not common for them to prosecute someone that has an over payment less than at least a grand though. But that'll vary between LA's. Quite often that info is available on line. Too much cost to the public purse prosecuting for low amounts.

His family support him but his mum dissowned him? It's likely that DWP with be there too & they'll conduct a joint interview. If he's there most the time, not registered living anywhere else, his mail goes to your address, joint bank account, car, insurance, it sounds like you'll be needing to convince them rather than be able to prove it unfortunately by the sounds of it tbh. It sounds like he's taking major liberties to me, doesn't pay for his children but doesn't mind using your home & letting you take the grief from benefit agencies. I'd get his name off of everything if it was me. Although it may be too late in the LA & DWP's eyes.

Absolutely, it's a shame not everyone thinks that though, if you compare the amount of signatures on both...

I'm still wondering why people would rather this happened than the petition to get Cameron out the seat...

Yes I always disagreed with that, they cut costs though don't they, quicker to do it the lazy way & just check out the last year or 2. Tax credits is an interest free loan option half the time. But what I mean when I say underpaid is there could have been some underlying entitlement (I am not sure if that's the right term) It's complex & you usually have to do your own homework, they rarely do that for you, but I have known people to have over payments knocked down from 11k to 1k after a fight. Also yes I agree with clamping down, tax avoidance would also be a good one, seeing as that costs the country god knows how many more millions each year than benefit fraud, once again, probably costs more to investigate. But if they had clamped down when I had split from my ex, they would have hauled me in. But there is no way we were in a relationship, ewww shudder lol I don't think his girlfriend at the time would have been too thrilled either lol

In theory yes, but how many extra hours work will they have to do to cover the 20 pounds a month more council tax? Seeing as they take 65p in the pound off of any extra you earn. Or am I seeing it wrong. As I say, it's too confusing to argue with them about anyway, I just let them adjust the direct debits & eat less lol