Council rights to reclaim benefits

Council_Concern

My mother claimed housing benefits for about 7 years before finding out she was entitled to a pension from Ireland (she left there when she was about 25 years old). She receives a monthly income still but also received a back payment in 2005 of about 4 years - the maximum the Irish government would give. She immediately took herself off to the Council offices and declared this income. They immediately reduced her rebate payments and told her she had to repay all of the benefits she had been overpaid for the 4 years. Is this right? I argued that as she hadn't even paid income tax on the amount, that the amount being taken into account was not even the final amount of her income. Also, I argued that she didn't know she was going to get this extra income back-dated so it seemed unfair to apply it to any year other that the year in which she actually received the income. Any advice welcomed.

Hailz86

OK from what I know of the benefit system (My mother has been on incapacity for a while now) They can only make your mother repay benefit if she was in reciept of this extra income whilst she was recieving the housing benefit. As she recieved this in one lump sum (from what I can tell) they can only reduce or stop future payments of her housing benefit. This should be stated quite clearly in her housing benefit documents.
Hope this helps x