over payment housing benefit

[lochnettie80]

hi all

 

in november i queried why i had a disabilty premium on my housing benefit calculation form,

i was aksed if i was in reciept of any form of disabilty benefit , to which i said no but i had been previosly, the person i spoke to looked back through the records i stopped claiming incapicty benefit in 2004, and claimed IS then started work in 2006

 

she said she was looking at the declaration i filled in which was achange of circumstance from which said i was no longer entitled to incapcity benefit..

 

then i recived a letter stating that i have an overpayment of £6051 in housing benefit and £2000 ish in council tax benefit.

 

they have told me i now owe this amount as the disablity premium had been in correctly included in my housing benefit award from 2005

 

my question is does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this as i dont know where to start.

 

i dont think i should have to pay this as they were in formed about my change in circumstance

 

i wasnt aware i was receiving this disabilty premuim until a letter came through the door asking for proof of it and that is why i questioned what i was for .

 

thanks

[postggj]

to be honest this is not my area and wait for more comments

 

if the last payment made to you with regards to the over payment was more than six years ago, then it would be statute barred and unenforceable in court

 

but they may take a percentage of any future benefit or pension entitlement each week to repay this debt

 

i recently got chased for a crisis lon from 1996, they told me they could not enforce in court but can take it out of future benefit entitlement

 

like i said, just my opinion on recent experience with the DWP

[estellyn]

hi all

 

in november i queried why i had a disabilty premium on my housing benefit calculation form,

i was aksed if i was in reciept of any form of disabilty benefit , to which i said no but i had been previosly, the person i spoke to looked back through the records i stopped claiming incapicty benefit in 2004, and claimed IS then started work in 2006

 

she said she was looking at the declaration i filled in which was achange of circumstance from which said i was no longer entitled to incapcity benefit..

 

then i recived a letter stating that i have an overpayment of £6051 in housing benefit and £2000 ish in council tax benefit.

 

they have told me i now owe this amount as the disablity premium had been in correctly included in my housing benefit award from 2005

 

my question is does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this as i dont know where to start.

 

i dont think i should have to pay this as they were in formed about my change in circumstance

 

i wasnt aware i was receiving this disabilty premuim until a letter came through the door asking for proof of it and that is why i questioned what i was for .

 

thanks

 

You need to appeal the overpayment, for starters on grounds of official error. But with housing benefit you have to prove that you could not reasonably know you were being overpaid.

[lochnettie80]

how long do i have to put in an appeal ? and not got a clue as to how i prove that i could not reasonably knon i was being over paid.

i was single up until september last year and was working , as far as i have read up you can ony get this disabilty premium if you are on benefits not working

[estellyn]

how long do i have to put in an appeal ? and not got a clue as to how i prove that i could not reasonably knon i was being over paid.

i was single up until september last year and was working , as far as i have read up you can ony get this disabilty premium if you are on benefits not working

 

You have one month from the date on the overpayment decision letter to appeal.

 

You already have one part of the official error, in that you informed them of the change and they didn't appropriately action the change. Proving you had no way of knowing, I think you'll need a benefits adviser (CAB, welfare rights) to help preparing arguments, there may well be some precedent that can be used. The argument would be that you don't know the reasons why disability premiums are awarded - for all you know the rules say a disability premium is awared if someone has been on incapacity benefit for a period of time, and this is maintained after the claim ends to support the person in work - how would you know? You wouldn't. So that's the argument - I'll try and check later if there's precedent, unless anyone else knows.

[jadeybags]

hi all

 

in november i queried why i had a disabilty premium on my housing benefit calculation form,

i was aksed if i was in reciept of any form of disabilty benefit , to which i said no but i had been previosly, the person i spoke to looked back through the records i stopped claiming incapicty benefit in 2004, and claimed IS then started work in 2006

 

she said she was looking at the declaration i filled in which was achange of circumstance from which said i was no longer entitled to incapcity benefit..

 

then i recived a letter stating that i have an overpayment of £6051 in housing benefit and £2000 ish in council tax benefit.

 

they have told me i now owe this amount as the disablity premium had been in correctly included in my housing benefit award from 2005

 

my question is does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this as i dont know where to start.

 

i dont think i should have to pay this as they were in formed about my change in circumstance

 

i wasnt aware i was receiving this disabilty premuim until a letter came through the door asking for proof of it and that is why i questioned what i was for .

 

thanks

 

Oh my goodness, this is like dejavu tbh. You have probably had an incompitent officer work out your housing benefit by the sounds of it. Been there, done it. IF they call you in for an IUC, if it gets that far, which with that over payment it likely will happen, try have any evidence you can find that you didn't tell them anything about claiming disability/carer benefits when you changed your circs & started working. They know it's their error then. And if I was you now, I would appeal that over payment & fight it.

p.s, are you sure that disability premium isn't actually called a family premium on your award letter?

[id6052]

the rules in relation to overpayments of housing benefit and/or council tax benefit are a lot harsher than the rules for DWP benefits

 

the basic rule for HB/CTB overpayments are that all overpayments are recoverable unless the following 3 conditions are all met

 

1. the overpayment was caused by an official error
   
2. you did not contribute to cause of overpayment
   
3. you could not reasonably have been expected to be aware there was an overpayment
   

the difficulty you may experience may be due to the fact that you queried in November why you were receiving the disability premium

 

the LA may determine that if you were able to realise this now, you could have realised it earlier, therefore you do not meet the third criterion - this is arguable and it is not unknown for LAs to try chancing their arm with overpayments that are not recoverable

 

you should appeal - you have one month from the decision - what may be important in your case is how clear the previous decision letters were in relation to the inclusion of the disability premium - i would suggest requesting copies of previous decision letters (assuming you have not kept copies) and checking exactly what information was included in them

[estellyn]

the rules in relation to overpayments of housing benefit and/or council tax benefit are a lot harsher than the rules for DWP benefits

 

the basic rule for HB/CTB overpayments are that all overpayments are recoverable unless the following 3 conditions are all met

 

1. the overpayment was caused by an official error
   
2. you did not contribute to cause of overpayment
   
3. you could not reasonably have been expected to be aware there was an overpayment
   

the difficulty you may experience may be due to the fact that you queried in November why you were receiving the disability premium

 

the LA may determine that if you were able to realise this now, you could have realised it earlier, therefore you do not meet the third criterion - this is arguable and it is not unknown for LAs to try chancing their arm with overpayments that are not recoverable

 

you should appeal - you have one month from the decision - what may be important in your case is how clear the previous decision letters were in relation to the inclusion of the disability premium - i would suggest requesting copies of previous decision letters (assuming you have not kept copies) and checking exactly what information was included in them

 

This is true - they may well say that if you queried it in November, you would have been able to query it earlier - unless you can point to something that prompted you to enquire now, that you didn't know before. But it is always worth appealling these official error overpayments.

[lochnettie80]

thanks for the info guys, have spoke to cab today they are going to help with the appeal, the reason i queried the disability premium was because they had given me an over payment over 3 months as my wages work paid wrongly ..it was only then that i had noticed this disability premium on the letter ....so basicaly if id have kept my mouth closed they wouldnt have known so that will teach me. i'll wait for the out come of the appeal is there any thing else i can be doing, ie:... can i sar the la to prove that i told them i was no longer on in capacity benefit

[estellyn]

thanks for the info guys, have spoke to cab today they are going to help with the appeal, the reason i queried the disability premium was because they had given me an over payment over 3 months as my wages work paid wrongly ..it was only then that i had noticed this disability premium on the letter ....so basicaly if id have kept my mouth closed they wouldnt have known so that will teach me. i'll wait for the out come of the appeal is there any thing else i can be doing, ie:... can i sar the la to prove that i told them i was no longer on in capacity benefit

 

You can send a SAR, it will also show you how many award letters you were sent showing the inappropriate premium.