Thanks HB From one of the many HMRC manuals available the extract: My bold would seem to indicate that infact the passing of the case to NE means that Compliance is happy that there has been a genuine, or certainly not deliberate error... VI

Good Afternoon People, I will save the pre-ramble but basically my wife was accused last year claiming single allowance on wtc/ctc whilst i was "living" with her... We were forced to enter a new couples claim, which actually pays more than her single!!, even though this is not the case... They asked her to repay about 12k... We wrote to then asking for NE to be applied and gave then several examples of how their conclusions were flawed (for another thread maybe) and have sent them nothing else... Initially we got a statement but this has stopped... Five months and a day after sending the letter my wife has had a phone call saying the matter is being passed to the NE team... My question is: Can the NE team refuse to apply NE or is there job solely to calculate the figures and inform my wife?... Judging by the time the compliance officer took to reply, they are a very busy department who appear to have bitten off more than they bargained for when they partnered up with Experian.. Thankyou VI