Housing Benefit Overpayment

[tiglet]

Posting heer forMr Tiglet.

 

A couple of weeks ago, he received a letter from a north london council stating he had been overpayed HB to the tune of £1300 and he needed to pay it back. He didn't have a clue what they were talking about and so emailed them to ask for more details.

 

A letter arrived this morning stating.

 

"We were notified on 15/08/02 by the department of work and pensions that you had moved out of xx on the 13/04/02 and made a claim for job seekers allowance at xxx. your claim was cancelled and the overpayment of £1300 was created. an overpayment letter was sent to you on 29/08/02 and a reminder letter sent to you on 15/02/03.

 

You have queried why it has taken so long for you to be invoiced, the first invoice was sent to you on 10/01/03. you left xxx on 13/04/02, but did not inform us of your change of address. Therefore the overpayment of £1300 is a recoverable payment".

 

 

"What?????" says Mr Tiglet.

 

What it looks like is that when he moved into his new address to the area of another north london council, he changed his job centre over and they changed his claim for JSA, but not HB. He has never received any letter and, as far as he was aware, was still being paid HB and did not really take any notice of who was actually paying it.

 

Any advice would be gratefully received on what to do next - this is from over 5 years ago, so he really can't remember all of the minutae, although he has got his bank statements going back to this time as he S.A.R - (Subject Access Request)'d his bank a few months ago.

[tiglet]

Bumpety bump!

[tiglet]

Well, I've emailed them from hubby's account asking them to confirm a payment schedule so we can look at his statements and see if they match up.

 

Would be grateful if anyone can advise on this - it's a lot of money just before christmas and he honestly doesn't know if what they are saying is correct or not - he definitely would have noticed this amount of extra money as he was unemployed at thetime due to the company he worked for going bust.

[gizmo111]

Well, I've emailed them from hubby's account asking them to confirm a payment schedule so we can look at his statements and see if they match up.

 

Would be grateful if anyone can advise on this - it's a lot of money just before christmas and he honestly doesn't know if what they are saying is correct or not - he definitely would have noticed this amount of extra money as he was unemployed at thetime due to the company he worked for going bust.

 

When HB talk about overpayments they do not mean they have paid you twice, they mean they have paid you in a period you are not entitled to. If he was claiming JSA during this period and he was entitled to HB, then it is an agency error, although he should have responded to their letters. Although knowing HB they probably sent it to his old address anyhow. I would contact welfare rights and see if they will negotiate on your bahalf between the 2 local authorities for one to pay the other and cancel the debt in your hubbys name.

 

Good Luck

[tiglet]

Thanks gizmo - I'll get him to give that try.

[surprise]

Tiglet, if you don't get it sorted I can asked my daughter tomorrow she is a contractor for housing benefits, just pm if you don't get any joy.

[tiglet]

Thanks surprise - Mr Tiglet is bed with a whopping hangover after a work;s celebration last night, so I don't think I'll really be able to get to the bottom of it with him until the weekend (go through dates etc and see if he can figure it out).

 

May well take you up on that offer of a PM.

[surprise]

Tiglet, my daughter emailed me today so I put your questions to her, this is her answer

 

from 13.04.02 to 15.08.02 Mr Tiglet recd HB for his old address whilst living elsewhere - even if Mr Tiglet used the money to pay rent at his new address - the overpayment of housing benefit will still be recoverable as Mr Tiglet should have informed the Local Authority of his change address. The Authority have up to six years to recovery from the last date of notification 15.02.03

 

I would suggest that Mr Tiglet request duplicate letters to see were these letters where sent. I have seen cases where notifications have gone to the wrong addresses.

 

If you move from one local authority to another the ownership is on the claimant (ie Mr Tiglet) to inform them that he wishes to claim HB from his new address - not to collect hb for his old address to pay on his new address.

 

If you require any further assistance please let me know

[The GodMother]

Just a question but could you ask your daughter what i should do then.

 

I moved house with my local council, from one council property to another, Informed them and filled out a new hb form but for 6 mths the hb was still being paid directly to the old rent account and not to the new. I have in writing that they were doing this and now over 2 yr down the line they still want 6mths rent for my current property even tho they have admitted it was there fault and they would ammend the account as necessary. They were gaining to lots of rent for the property as they relet it 5 days after we moved out.

 

I have given them copies of all the paperwork they have sent me and i am still not getting anywere. Have been threw welfare rights, cab and internal complaints procedure with no luck.

 

Yours and your daughter help would be very grateful.

 

Ty

 

The GodMother.

[surprise]

She has just left work, but I will email her tomorrow for you. I will pm her reply save gatecrashing Tiglet's thread.

[The GodMother]

ok ty

[tiglet]

Thanks Surprise - the thing is, hubby did inform them and filled out new housing benefit forms - but it looks like it took the DWP ages to inform both councils, so he's been underpaid by one and overpaid by the other while everyone got their acts together, if you see what I mean.

[surprise]

I see what your saying. I will email my daughter tomorrow to see what you can do. He should get copies though of all documents sent out and to which addresses they went to. Trouble is with Councils its all red tape and trying to get through its a nightmare.

[surprise]

Tiglet. my daughter has just phoned and apparently he should have gone into the old authority cancelled that claim then go to the new authority and fill in forms at the new authority. Apparently you can only have claims back dated for a 12 month period. It is not up to the DWP to notify the councils the onus is on the person receiving the benefit. It looks as if he was never advised correctly.

 

It seems as if he is going to be liable for it. Also, Councils are so far behind with catching up with overpayments this is why it is has took them so long.

 

It would be still worthwhile though asking for copies of all correspondence.

[The GodMother]

to suprise and tiglet.

 

When we moved into this area we were issued with hb claim form by the dss which were instantly and in our presents faxed to hb section of the council. They told use it saves them time as the hb department would have to write to the dwp and the dwp would have to write back them doing thing like thay saved about 4 weeks of waiting on forms being filled out allerdgly.

 

I dont know if the system changed but this was in the great yarmouth area in 2003. I now every area has its own ways of working.

 

I would advise you go to the dwp office which your hubby was claiming at and ask there advice hypothetically. As you know under the data protection act they cant tell you anything regarding each individual person but they can answer hyperthetical questions.

 

You may be able to get information on who u need to write to and how they would help u as they should have all the paper work on file that you have gave them. All though a word of warning. A lot of unimportant info is distroyed after 4 years so you may not be able to find much out.

[surprise]

Tiglet - this might be of interest to you from my daughter.

 

A spokesman said there were 1,669 complaints of maladministration of housing benefit in the London region over the 12 months to the end of March and 60% of these were from people in the boroughs of Lambeth, Islington, Hackney and Southwark where the service is run by private contractors.

 

this was 2001 - so 2002 would not have been much better

[tiglet]

Thanks surprise - may well be useful to know.

[tiglet]

OK - we have managed to dig around and I have found out the following - would be interested to knwo if this changes anything.

 

There is no overpayment as such - it is, as we suspected, a metter of DWP not pulling their finger out.

 

Mr Tiglet lived in North London and as he moved only a short distance away (from Archway to Highgate), he had no idea the councils had changed. The jobcentre he attended did not change. When he informed them taht he had moved (the first time he signed on after he had moved) he had to refill in HB forms. No-one told him his council had changed from islington to Hackney and there was no reason to suppose it had. As no-one had told him, he assumed (seemingly incorrectly) that by filling in the forms and notifying the jobcentre, he had followed all procedures correctly. At no point during thsi period did he have to fill in forms at either council - it was all done centrally through the DWP.

 

I think it's really unfair that they are chasing him for this as it is an administrative error - I'm sure Hackney council would not give him the money back, so surely it should be down to the DWP, Hackney & Islington councils to sort this mess out.

[gizmo111]

When he filled in the forms which council were they submitted to?

Surely if the wrong LA got them you would think they would either pass it on the relevant authority or return it to the claimant.

Have you contacted welfare rights who may be able to help.

[tiglet]

He didn't actually submit them to any council, that's the problem - they were the old style job-centre ones which he filled in there and then - it seems the DWP were extremely slow in passing them on and notifying Islington about the change of address.

 

I'll try welfare rights in the morning.

[gizmo111]

He didn't actually submit them to any council, that's the problem - they were the old style job-centre ones which he filled in there and then - it seems the DWP were extremely slow in passing them on and notifying Islington about the change of address.

 

I'll try welfare rights in the morning.

 

 

What I meant was who did the JC submit them to?

[tiglet]

Sorry!

 

They submitted them to Hackney council and informed Islington counci, but they didn't do this until about 4 months after he filled in the forms.

 

As the amount did not change, he wasn't aware anything was wrong until this letter arrived earlier this month.

[The GodMother]

well i love to say this but it is the fault of the JC then and the JC need to have a complaint filed against them. You also need to make the councils in question aware of the full situation as they might have progedures to follow.

[tiglet]

I thought so - it just seems ridiculous that he had to go through the DWP to claim his allowance and now the council want to penalise him for the DWP's error.

[The GodMother]

He could hve gone to the council himself and sorted this matter out but they then need to write to the DWP and find out info about your money so they can properly assess what you are entitled to.

 

This can take a long time, over here it is taking up to 6 mths for HB and CTB form to be soted out in the mean time some ppl are being evicted forom there housing. Also if they dont get the forms back in time which is highly likely then it can take even longer. You doing the forms via the JC is suspose to save time and get it sorted out quicker.

 

Needless to say it is not rite for everyone.