Incapacity Benefit -- visit from Compliance Officer - why? what?

TOBRUK

Well it seems you have worked out what your visit may be about. I suppose you need to gather all the details regarding any earnings to show the officer.

travelodger

TOBRUK wrote: »

Well it seems you have worked out what your visit may be about. I suppose you need to gather all the details regarding any earnings to show the officer.

There is just one small problem -- how can they possibly know that I am earning anything at all? I certainly have not told them.

TOBRUK

I haven't a clue travelodger! I couldn't understand why I was receiving a visit and had never heard of a 'compliance officer' before this. I didn't know what the visit was about until he arrived and told me, and then I had no idea what this overpayment was!

As he was leaving he said that he was 95% certain that I hadn't received an overpayment. I shall be contacted in the next few weeks and notified whether they have made an overpayment (their mistake!)and if this is the case I will need to pay them back. I don't understand how this could have happened as they have all the information - it just shows one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.

TOBRUK

Just a thought travelodger, has your circumstances changed at all? The !!!! up that seems to have happened in my case is the changes in my DLA around the time in question which changed - it lowered to low rate but within a few weeks it changed again and went up to highest rate.

It looks as though they thought I was still on low rate and was receiving high rate payment. The only thing that didn't make sense was that they had sent me a letter regarding changes in payment - high rate premium payments which meant that they knew that I had been put on high rate DLA!

travelodger

I had my appeal hearing in October. They then backdated my IB to February, so I got £3,000 arrears.

Absolutely nothing has changed since then. I have not contacted them about anything, and the only thing I have had from them in all that time was a standard circular letter stating that the amounts of benefits have been increased, then this letter about the Compliance Officer visiting me.

All their payments to me are perfectly in order.

mummyslittleboy

Hi

You are right a compliance officer is a fraud investigator all income needs to be declared to them no matter how small it is however they might not consider £625.00 a small amount for 3 hours work. You might also have an issue with the fact if you are receiving Incapacity benefit then you have been deemed unfit to work but they might argue now that you shouldn't be receiving it as you have in fact worked. You dont need to declare it they will find out sooner or later it could be through the tax office or anything , they are all linked or supposed to be nowadays.

Then again they might not even know the best thing is to have any documents ready when they arrive and just see what they want if they do mention you working then just be honest with them.

Goodluck

travelodger

mummyslittleboy wrote: »

Hi

You are right a compliance officer is a fraud investigator all income needs to be declared to them no matter how small it is however they might not consider £625.00 a small amount for 3 hours work. You might also have an issue with the fact if you are receiving Incapacity benefit then you have been deemed unfit to work but they might argue now that you shouldn't be receiving it as you have in fact worked. You dont need to declare it they will find out sooner or later it could be through the tax office or anything , they are all linked or supposed to be nowadays.

Then again they might not even know the best thing is to have any documents ready when they arrive and just see what they want if they do mention you working then just be honest with them.

Thanks.

On the jobcentre website it states clearly that you ARE allowed to work, and you do not need to seek permission to work, and you need not declare your earnings if they are up to £93 a week for the first year, then £20 a week from then onwards, indefinitely.

They cannot suddenly change these rules during a visit to just one person.

£93 a week taken over a year is £4,800. I only earned £500 so that is well under the limit.

In my second year I can earn £1,000 but have only earned £155.

pinkmouse

I got a visit from a compliance officer once a couple of years ago. What she told me was that once a year, they do compliance checks in certain council areas and my name had come up purely at random. Everything was ok, but I nearly died when she turned up unannounced at the door.
I'm not sure if that's how things work in England too (I'm in Scotland) but it's probably nothing to worry about.

TOBRUK

travelodger wrote: »

I had my appeal hearing in October. They then backdated my IB to February, so I got £3,000 arrears.

Absolutely nothing has changed since then. I have not contacted them about anything, and the only thing I have had from them in all that time was a standard circular letter stating that the amounts of benefits have been increased, then this letter about the Compliance Officer visiting me.

All their payments to me are perfectly in order.

Well it may be that the amount of arrears you received may be wrong. It just seems strange that I have just received arrears and all of a sudden I get a visit and now you get a visit straight after an arrears payment. I couldn't work out if the arrears payment I received from them was the correct amount! I received arrears payment from IS and also from DLA - two different payments went into my account and I couldn't work them out no matter how I calculated - I tried a few times!

Let us know what happens. I'm just glad that I didn't know (until now) that a 'compliance officer' was infact a 'fraud officer' because I would have been worried about the visit - although I haven't done anything wrong!

travelodger

"Well it may be that the amount of arrears you received may be wrong..you get a visit straight after an arrears payment.."

They paid my arrears 6 months ago immeiately after I won the appeal. And wouldn't they just write and say if they had made a mistake? I hope it's just that.

"I'm just glad that I didn't know (until now) that a 'compliance officer' was infact a 'fraud officer' because I would have been worried about the visit - although I haven't done anything wrong!"

That is exactly how I feel, too! I've checked and double checked and triple-checked, and I cannot for the life of me see any way that I am breaking any rules. In another thread, a man with a holiday cottage asks

"what is the position if I want to let out a holiday cottage"

And is assured and sent links to official policy documents that prove time and again that UNearned income IS allowed while on IB.

There are no limits on what you can earn from property, so long as you don't do any work. For example, he mustn't clean his holiday cottage, or provide breakfast. However, his female partner does all the chores so he's not "working" as such.

Applying this to me, so long as I don't cook for my lodgers or clean their rooms, I am OK receiving the income. And I can receive income from book sales so long as I don't do any work towards getting those sales.