housing benefit overpayment

[ACEFR3HL3Y]

Hi all,I am gradually managing to clear my old debts,thnx to this forum.I have,however,today received a letter from local council regarding overpayment of housing benefit from over 7 years ago,can you believe it???

It states the original invoice value was £356.57 and I only paid £15 towards this on 19/02/03..

The letter goes on to state that further recovery action was taken between 2003 and 2005 but I failed to pay the balance..It then goes on to say

" I apologise that you have not been contacted about the debt since that time"

 

My question is,as this is now 2010,will this debt be statute barred?

Personally I think the council have some front in sending me this letter after so long and must admit,I laughed when I received it....

 

thnx

[harrassed senior]

Firstly, as they have mentioned recovery action was taken, it might be an idea to see if there is a CCJ against you. You could check online, although I believe they only keep records of CCJs for 6 years. CCJs, court orders & fines - Search yourself and others - Trust Online

 

Personally I would just ignore this and see what they come up with next, I am not sure if SB applied to the likes of overpayment of Benefits.

[ACEFR3HL3Y]

Hi,

I am positive I do not have a CCJ against me for this debt.....I thought this may have been SB as it is still a debt...

Does SB only apply to certain debts and not others then? I will,however,ignore this letter and see what happens next

 

thnx

[slyspy]

Debts to the government are not covered by statute barred legislation.

[ACEFR3HL3Y]

lol,surprise surprise!!! thnx slypsy....next question...Do I have to prove the debt is not mine or do they have to prove it is? It is a hell of a long time ago,how can I be sure I owe them what they say? Why would it take them so long as I pay them rent every week and have done for the last god knows when,not as if they didn't know where I was...

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

Government debt can become statute barred,but if a court order has be made the

department would have to apply to the court to restart the action, however a stat barred debt to HMG

can only be collected if at any time you claim a social security benefit such as income support/JCA and the like,

when they can take a minimal amount from the benefit.

[Bazooka Boo]

Debts to the government are not covered by statute barred legislation.

 

That is not really accurate.

The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) has 6 years to take action through the courts to recover benefit overpayments and social fund loans. This time starts running from the date of the final decision made on the overpayment and from when the social fund loan was due to be paid. But the DWP are still allowed to make deductions from your benefit for a debt over 6 years old as they don’t need to go to court to do this. This applies to overpayments of benefits such as income support, job seekers allowance, pension credit, housing benefit, council tax benefit and paying back social fund loans

 

So what that means is that they will simply take an amount from your current benefits to pay of the outstanding alleged overpayment.

 

The best way to argue this, is to use their complaints procedure, and keep escalating it further until you either get the result you want, or they are adamant that you do owe this.

If it is an oversight or due to their extremely poor training, ie. they are at fault and caused the overpayment, then you won't have to pay this back, but you do need to open up a complaint with them and get them to look at this decision again.

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

hI bAZOOKA BOO,

 

Isn't that what I said? I had a disability allowance over payment over 20 years ago which

suddenly surfaced last year, I was on pension credit and the DWP made deductions from that

until I retired this year a DWP debt manager phoned me to say that they now condsider

the debt finished.

What I have posted above is exactly as explained by the debt manager.

No disrespect to a Gold account holder intended!!

[Bazooka Boo]

Posts crossed, I was clearly typing my response when you posted yours, so couldn't read your post, if everyone is saying the same thing then the OP can be confident that the advise given is accurate, besides I wasn't replying to your thread.

[harrassed senior]

That is not really accurate.

The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) has 6 years to take action through the courts to recover benefit overpayments and social fund loans. This time starts running from the date of the final decision made on the overpayment and from when the social fund loan was due to be paid. But the DWP are still allowed to make deductions from your benefit for a debt over 6 years old as they don’t need to go to court to do this. This applies to overpayments of benefits such as income support, job seekers allowance, pension credit, housing benefit, council tax benefit and paying back social fund loans

 

So what that means is that they will simply take an amount from your current benefits to pay of the outstanding alleged overpayment.

 

The best way to argue this, is to use their complaints procedure, and keep escalating it further until you either get the result you want, or they are adamant that you do owe this.

If it is an oversight or due to their extremely poor training, ie. they are at fault and caused the overpayment, then you won't have to pay this back, but you do need to open up a complaint with them and get them to look at this decision again.

 

Agreed/