Overpaid Housing Benefit

[montrose]

Hi

Don't know if this is the right place but wondered if anyone could help me and let me know where i stand.

 

Today i received 2 letters from my local council about overpaid housing benefit .

First one is for £366.90 from 2005 and the second for £241.77 from 2008.

 

As these are both over 6 years old do i have to pay them?

[maroondevo52]

Hi,

 

I've moved this thread to a more appropriate Forum, hopefully you will get some help shortly.

[silverfox1961]

Hi

As with all benefits, the council could reclaim them from an existing award even if they are statute barred. They have you over a barrel if you do claim. If you don't claim any HB then they would usually farm them out to debt collectors to chase and when you tell them SB, they return it to the council.

 

If you have moved out of the local authority area and are under a new council, not much they can do.

 

Have you investigated how the overpayments arose. They must have the data as they are chasing.

[montrose]

Hi

Thanks for answering. I haven't done anything yet as wasn't sure what to do.

Still living in the same house but haven't claimed any benefits for 8 years.

Should I contact the council?

[silverfox1961]

You could tell them that the amounts are SB but they will come back and tell you that they will reclaim from any future award.

 

With HB overpayments, if you were unaware of the error nor could have been expected to know about the error AND it was the councils fault for the overpayment occurred then they should accept this and write the amount off however, if you had failed at any time to inform them of any change in circumstances then the overpayment could stand.

 

This happened to me a (long) while ago and I managed to get them to drop the claim as it was their fault.

 

What I would do is demand to see how the overpayment occurred and why they have taken so long to chase this. If the response is confusing or complete nonsense, you can instigate the complaints process. This puts the council in a difficult position as they would have to do a full search to get ll the details of the claims at the time.

[montrose]

OK. Thank you. Will get in touch with the council.