Income Support debt and Repayment

[colinsunderland]

A friend of mine was getting income support up until around July last year when his wife hit pension age.

She now gets state pension and they get no IS.

 

He claims carers allowance for her, around £60 a week.

 

He has an outstanding overpayment debt with them of around £9000 which he was repaying at £10 a week from his IS, which was around £150 a week.

 

He got a letter about 3 weeks ago stating they are taking £20 a week for the debt from his CA starting third week of December.

 

Firstly,

he's not 100% sure what the overpayment was for,

he says it was at least 10 years ago and he's been paying £10 a week since then,

but insists it started at around £9k, so I'm unsure how it can still be the same 10 years later.

 

Is there any way of getting a statement of the debt, what it was for and payments since the start?

 

Secondly, is there any way to reduce the repayments, even if its just back to the £10 a week he was paying when he was getting £100 more a week?

 

Thanks for any help

[dx100uk]

sar time- its free too

[colinsunderland]

is there a thread on how to SAR DWP or is it just teh same as any other company?

Thanks for the quick response

[dx100uk]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?406188-DWP-Subject-Access-Request-From-(SAR

[honeybee13]

Are they getting all the benefits they're entitled to? AgeUK do benefit checks and will go to see people, it's worth speaking to them.

 

HB

[colinsunderland]

thanks guys will get that sent off this week.

 

In the short term, whats the best way to reduce the amount paid back weekly, is it best to just ring debt management and request a lower payment?

 

Do the DWP make mistakes, what is the plan of action once he gets the SAR back?

[fkofilee]

Well the DWP do make mistakes and once he gets his SAR back let us know. Its worth seeing what they have on their system so you can then complain etc