childcare overpayment

[joebloggs72]

hi all i have a very stressing problem my son and daughter both attended private nursey while myself and my wife worked as such we claimed childcare which we was entitled too .

 

now back in april 2011 we had a random request from the tax credit office asking for proof we had children in nursery this we did by having the nursery which is council run provide a letter stating childcare costs by this time my daughter was no longer attending there as she started school..and my son we was removing in the july ..so when our tax credits dropped we never gave it a second thought ..

 

now we renewed our tax credits in july 2011 and nothing changed so we assumed all was well now we jump to this year and renewed them again in july 2012 all of a sudden they say they over paid us by £10,000 for childcare as we didnt provide proof we was entitled to it back in april 2011.. but we had so we resent them the letter as we kept a copy we today we recieved a letter saying they wasnt going to change there decision as they fulfilled all there responsibilties..which they havent as they lost the original letter and never requested anything again..i need to know what to do as my kids was in childcare for which the money they paid us was used to pay for childcare

[jadeybags]

Are they denying you sent the recent letter? But are saying too late in theory? Did you send any of the letters by tracked post?

If they dig their heels in you could ask for a SAR, quite often they do receive these letters & don't update your details. Have had it happen to me, but not with childcare. In my experience they are the worst place for it!

[estellyn]

Phone up and say you want to challenge the overpayment decision - they'll send you a form which you fill in with the relevant info of when you sent the letter, and if they didn't receive proof it was their responsibility to chase it up at the time - not yours to check they received the letter.

[Ros1609]

All you can do is what Estellyn says and challenege their decision

[joebloggs72]

when it was renewal time this year in july we filled it in it was just after that we had a letter saying there had been a over payment of £10,000 plus this we said wasnt right and sent in the appeal form together with a copy of the original sent the year b4 as its that they said they never recieved the result of the appeal letter going in is according to them they did all they was responsable for and the debt stands.. but both my children were in child care for the period they say there is a debt so therefore we was entitled to the money and we sent in a letter from the childcare provider stating what they weekly fees was

[joebloggs72]

we did challenge the decision when we renewed this year in july we had the letter come through saying there had been a over payment of £10,000 we downloaded the appeal forms and sent it off with a copy of the original letter stating what the childcare fees where..as both children where in chidcare at the time so we was entitled to help towards that its to this there saying they did there responabilties and the debt stands,,but how could they children in nursey they request proof of this we send in proof we hear nothing from them again for 14 plus months

[maroondevo52]

Hi hades8840,

 

I have merged both your threads on this subject, make it easier for people to help you out, I've unapproved your duplicate post.

 

Regards.

 

Scott.

[estellyn]

You need to take the matter further, phone up and request that the appeal be sent to the Tribunal service, where the appeal can be heard independently. They may send you a different form to complete.

[joebloggs72]

hi all well my wife called them to see why they turned down our appeal and what they said was as follows

 

when we moved home in april 2011 and they sent out the request for proof of childcare the first letter bounced and was returned to the tax office so they stopped our claim now we was between two homes at the time and had paid royal mail to forward our post which they did on some but not all so we didnt get the first letter it was when we phoned them to find out why the payments had stopped we found that out (now we are sure we did tell them we had moved as we had a list of all to call but we may not off at the time depending how close to us moving the letter arrived..) either way we wasnt expecting mail from them until june and tax renewal for it to be a major prioty specially seeing we had mail forwarding ..

anyway that is one reason there citing as we didnt inform them within 30 days we had moved but again we believe we did but cant prove that.. the information we sent them at their request to prove we was entitled to childcare they say they didnt get but we know it was sent and we didnt chase it up becauuse the letter they sent to us clearly states if they do not recieve the information by the date of 31st july when we renewed our tax credits our payments would stop now they never stopped so that implies they got the information or they would of stopped paying us..

 

now the lady my wife spoke with said they cant reverse the decision as its been made but to send in a detailed letter pointing all this out but this is david and golaith and i know how the tax office can be so does my wife there forever saying they dont recieve stuff ..we need advice on this as they want us to pay back 10k of money we seriously dont have

[estellyn]

Request for the appeal to be forwarded to the Tribunal service to be heard. Also there should be a date on the letter sent detailing childcare - so that should indicate when you replied.

[joebloggs72]

problem is they never responded when we originally sent in the letter so there is no return letter to have a date on

Request for the appeal to be forwarded to the Tribunal service to be heard. Also there should be a date on the letter sent detailing childcare - so that should indicate when you replied.

[estellyn]

problem is they never responded when we originally sent in the letter so there is no return letter to have a date on

 

You stated the nursery provided a letter for you, this should have a date on it.

[joebloggs72]

You stated the nursery provided a letter for you, this should have a date on it.

 

here is the letter in full its easier then me trying to explain..

 

dear mrs x

i wrote to you on the 9th april 2011 to tell you i was reviewing your claim for the year 2010-2011 in order to do this i asked you to provide the following information.

any official contract with your childcare provider.

any invoices or reciiepts showing actual childcare payments you made..

 

to date i have not recieved this information.if i do not recieve this information by 9th may 2011. i will use the information we have to amend your award ..if your having difficulity obtaining the information please ring on xxxxxxxx

 

to complete my checks i will also need to deal with the finalisation of your tax credits award.

if we do not recieve your declaration by 31st july your tax credit payments will stop and you may be asked to repay any payments made to you since 6 april 2011

 

now on the 5th of may a payment was due and we didnt get it so my wife called them thats when we found out about the returned letter and the address being wrong they resent the letter which is the one above with the old address still on it as we requested the letter be resent.. so at that point they knew we couldnt get the information by the 9th may so the letter we sent them from the nursery was got and dated 17th june ..now tthe payments resumed the following week in may as my wife spoke with the complience dept and they re-activated the claim ...they knew we didnt get proper invoices and that a letter would be fine as per the letter our payments continued and were never stopped and no further letters as far as we are aware where sent out until renewal in may of 2011 theses where completed sent back and then we heard nothing from tax office until we renewed in july 2012