DSS debts

christie_3

A friend of mine owes a substantial amount of money to the DSS after a fraudulent claim - he is currently having money deducted from his IS to pay towards this. However, he has the chance of work in Spain, for a Spanish company. How will paying into a different Social security system affect the DSS ability to reclaim money from him?

ohreally

christie wrote:

How will paying into a different Social security system affect the DSS ability to reclaim money from him?

If he contacts the DWP and explains the situation they will clarify the procedure which will enable him to repay his outstanding debt.This should ease any concerns he may have about their ability to recover the debt.

christie_3

I think his thinking is that he may not have to repay it by leaving the country - very wrong, in my opinion, but is this likely?

singlehouseholder

Sounds very iffy to me, your friend is claiming IS, does that mean he's claiming it because he's incapable of work and hasn't made enough contributions to claim IB?? So he's found work with a Spanish eployer, woW, seems an awful long way to go for a job- wouldn't mind it myself though. Your pal should contact the Dept. If he returns from Spain and finds that he needs to claim IS again,for whatever reason, he's going to run into serious problems.He also needs to see what the situation is regarding contributions/taxes and so on as i'm sure he'd be mortified if he found he wasn't contributing back into the system!!

Ted_Hutchinson

I don't know anything about the ability of the DWP to liase with other EU countries regarding repayment of current debt but the fact that he still owes them money will affect any futher claim he makes in the future.

We have had people here making a new claim and then finding that money they owed the DWP, outstanding from many years ago, is being reclaimed from this new claim. So I can be certain that if he does manage temporarily to delay repayment, it will affect any future reclaim. If it's is on his record it won't be forgotten.

christie_3

He is claiming IS because he is unemployed and can't get work here so is keen to take up the offer of work in Spain, understandably. He hasn't many years to go before retirement - would the DSS be able to deduct money from his UK State pension to repay his debts, assuming he stays in Spain forever more?

singlehouseholder

beingh unemployed doesn't qualify you for Income Support unless he happens to be a carer, or a lone parent, or a student.. anything else Ted, you know your stuff.
If he is just "unemployed" then surely he should be claiming JobSeekersAllowance, which funnily enough is an allowance for jobseekers. Regardless of this, why should he be entitled to full pension if he owes the dept money. If you do the crime you do the time- if he has commited fraud then he should pay the overpayment back, simple as- everyone else has to do it, what makes him think he's special??
This site should NOT be used as a means of finding out how to get away with not paying back benefit that has been WRONGFULLY claimed....

christie_3

Bit harsh - I was only trying to help him...usually the people on this site are extremely helpful and informative - maybe you are having a bad day...Though, you are right - I believe he is claiming income based JSA - I had no idea there was a difference.

jfdi

christie,

This is not confirmed, I hasten to add, but I've always understood that overpayments of Benefit that haven't been written off are pursued as far as possible - & if that means deducting from your Retirement Pension then so be it!

TBH, if you're friend was daft enough to commit & be found guilty of defrauding the Benefit system, then it's right & just that they DO pursue him!

If he contacts the relevant dept they'll be able to arrange for him to continue repaying the o/p whilst he's working in Spain, so at least he's reducing the amount that'll be left to recoup in the long term.

HTH

A
xx

christie_3

Thanks for that jfdi - you have clarified the situation for my friend...

singlehouseholder

bit harsh?? all you friend needed to do, or you could even do it, it to contact the dept directly and explain the situation to them- then they'd tell him exactly what he needed to do.. bad day, who me-my bad day wouldn't result in me being unhelpful,i dont take "bad days" out on op, just expressing an opinion.