.“...may have been paid too much income related benefit” was their phrase. Care to put a figure on “very long time” and any clue if there’s a limit to how long they’re allowed to take? It was interesting to note from today’s news that the various celebrities whose tax avoidance methods HMRC took a dim view of will not be subject to penalties because investigations took too long. It would be nice if there were a simple table showing the time limits applicable to different kinds of investigation to save questions similar to mine (but, as far as I could find, not the same) popping up repeatedly.

...which would be exceptionally good news if true, as that's who I'd be dealing with. DR

I have no idea what benefits my mother may have received or how much, my guess about "when" is that it would be between June 2009 and August 2013, the latter being the time of her death and the former a time when I know her savings had been small. During that period I believe she spent very little of the benefits she received so her “savings” would have grown but without amounts & dates from bank statements I’ve no idea when she would have ceased qualifying for some of those benefits & what the extent of any overpayments might be. I don’t want to fork out an arm & a leg for 4 years’ worth of statements until I know how far back the DWP thinks the overpayments go. I’d like to bring my duties as executor to a close and the usual Notice in the Gazette won’t achieve that because I’ve already been advised of the DWP’s “potential claim”. I'm hoping there's a legal time limit to how long they can expect everything to remain frozen awaiting their decision. (Or, failing that, the matter slips through the cracks for six years so it becomes unenforceable. Only joking on that one - I know it doesn't apply to debts to the Crown. Unless this would just be considered a debt to a local authority, in which case I'm not joking.) DR

After obtaining probate to deal with my late mother’s estate I was contacted by the DWP in one of their standard fishing exercises re: benefit overpayments. This initial letter included the line “We will let you know whether or not we need to make further enquiries within 20 working days”. If only. Despite returning the form the next day I was chased for a response a month later. 2 days after that they confirmed receipt of my original response! Based on this my expectations of response time from DWP are poor. That was 2 months ago and I have heard nothing further. I have no desire to wake these sleeping dogs but as executor I would like to finalise and distribute the estate and would like to know if there is any legal limit to how long I can be forced to wait. I know that a Trustee Act notice in the London Gazette provides a time limit for creditors to come forward but in this case a letter notifying a potential debt has already been received prior to publication of a Notice. If this case got lost in the cracks would I be expected to hold the funds permanently in limbo awaiting a response or is there a limit? I haven’t been able to Google an answer so I thought I’d ask the experts! DR