Someone else claiming my cold weather payment

elaina79

Please can someone confirm that the cold weather payment is issued per household and not per claim.

I have been waiting for my payments to come in but so far nothing has arrived. There have been 3 payments triggered by my weather station so far this winter.

I have just discovered that there is another claim at my address. To cut a long story short, my sister in law, her boyfriend and their baby were going to move here in the summer. They changed their claim to my address but then in November decided to move back to scotland.
They haven't however changed any of their claims.
Now they have received a cold weather payment for my address.

I really don't know where to begin to get all this sorted to get the money that I am owed. I will be informing the benefits agency that they are not here and moved in November. If I do this will I get them into trouble, Is that not classed as fraud.

bunny999

Yes it is fraud. You need to report them in order to get it sorted out.

mrbrightside842

Would they be getting the payment where they are aswell? If not, ask them for the money they've got which should be yours, and also ask them to change their address. If they are, tell them to change their address and let benefits know that they never lived there.

withabix

Ask them for your money. If they refuse, report them for fraud.

TOBRUK

Hi elaina79, did your sister in law, her boyfriend and baby stay with you at any time? If that was the case were you and they on benefits as well? If so, did the dwp know of the situation? I am asking because I wonder if that was the situation where you would have stood with regard benefits e.g. housing, council tax etc if you were claiming these at the time. Also, when they moved out you and they should have reported any changes to your situation. They certainly shouldn't be using your address for any claim!

Just wondered in case you could get into trouble even though you were totally innocent.

geoff11

yes its fraud contact the dwp.

KimYeovil

Did they actually stay with you during summer until November? Surely that would have affected your benefits as well - housing, council tax etcetera. You should now be getting more money again now they have left.

Whiteknight

elaina79 wrote: »

Please can someone confirm that the cold weather payment is issued per household and not per claim.

I have been waiting for my payments to come in but so far nothing has arrived. There have been 3 payments triggered by my weather station so far this winter.

I have just discovered that there is another claim at my address. To cut a long story short, my sister in law, her boyfriend and their baby were going to move here in the summer. They changed their claim to my address but then in November decided to move back to scotland.
They haven't however changed any of their claims.
Now they have received a cold weather payment for my address.

I really don't know where to begin to get all this sorted to get the money that I am owed. I will be informing the benefits agency that they are not here and moved in November. If I do this will I get them into trouble, Is that not classed as fraud.

Firstly they should have notified the DWP that they were not living at your address - they are getting a CWP based on potentially incorrect weather station information.
The CWP is paid per claim so if you are getting a qualifying benefit you should get your own payment regardless of your brother and any claim he may have.

As you are aware your address is being used incorrectly you should notify the DWP.

NASA_2

Its nonsense to suggest that they are getting your CWP. What they may have done is got a payment based on incorrect information because they failed to declare the fact that they had moved.

If you were entitled to a CWP you would have got it anyway. What benefits are you on?

unemployedJCP

Alternatively you could report them to the police (who would then likely inform DWP). At the end of the day you don't have to report them if you don't want to - such an claim with incorrect information isn't directly linked to your home (although obviously contained within) but their benefit claim (including name and NI) - i.e. you aren't liable.

I wouldn't report them if you were claiming benefits without disclosing their being there as you could be prosecuted for benefit fraud (overpayments) although unlikely. Most prosecutions for such fraud is people failing to report Change of Circumstances sometimes the most trivial stuff. Depends how long they were there. DWP exaggerates the amount of money overclaimed.

tr82

I don't see as it's necessarily fraud. They'd presumably receive the same amount of benefit in Scotland as they do down south so there's no payment error unless they've failed to disclose other changes too.

Have they been paid too many cold weather payments ? Doubtful. Scotland's hardly been a tropical paradise over the last four weeks.

And the suggestion to report them to the Police is nothing short of risible.