Housing Benefit debt due to JSA not informing them

Ladywriter1968

woody01 wrote: »

Of course its your fault....you could have contacted the council.

Also, if you have been overpaid, then surely you have the money available to give back to them don't you?
Or did you just spend it.

We did not get the money from housing they pay it straight to the landlord and No it aint our fault. We told JSA and the council and the housing and they wrote it down on their pc, after they continued to pay the housing to the landlord.

If people dont understand how housing bens work then I appreciate not being judged on this, as I came here for help and advice really.

Ladywriter1968

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Do you have any proof that you informed the council of your change of circumstances?

There would be no reason for JCP to contact the council about HB as some people are able to claim help even when working.

We do have letters yes but when she put it on her pc we didnt have proof of that day and I know what you are getting at as well now.

Ladywriter1968

I would just like to say thanks to those who have advised and helped on here, but people that dont understand how housing benefits works and assumed they paid it all to us are wrong, the housing bens are paid through the councils not directly to us. And I really came here to help and people who dont understand the system cant really help and saying it was my fault does not help me, and its not our fault.

We informed the council and the housing benefits and they noted it down on their pc, but then still continued to pay the housing benefits to the council though.

So No it aint our fault. Anyone on here who wants to argue the point with me I just wont reply to. Only give me advice not rows.

nikki&asha

If the council have been paid the full rent by housing benefit and yourselves then you should be in credit on yur rent account. So ask them to take the overpayment from the rent account or pay them with the next few weeks rent money as the rent will be paid from the credit? Thats what I did when I had an overpayment - although the letter housing bens send you doesn't explain this.

viktory

Ladywriter1968 wrote: »

Recently my husband started a job. We informed JSA and they signed us off. We also informed the council about this as well about a week later. Although normally I believe when you sign off JSA are supposed to inform the housing benefits people anyway.

Today we received a letter stating an over payment of housing benefits because JSA did not bother to inform the housing team of when we signed off. Even though we spent numerous time on the phone to JSA for letters and to say to inform housing etc and that we wanted the appropriate letters which we still dont have.

Now we have been landed with a housing benefit debt over payment thanks to the JSA not informing them when they should have done.

Is it right we should have to repay this since its not our fault. We did our part? The JSA are the ones who made this bad error not us?

We will still be liable to pay even though we informed housing of the date we signed off but JSA didnt, and housing continued to pay us housing benefits.

Before I read the replies thus far - surely if you signed off HB you would have been paying your own rent - in addition to HB paying it. Therefore, you will have overpaid your rent. So the answer is simple. Miss some rent payments (however many you have overpaid) and give that to the HB department instead.

Oh and incidentally, it is your responsibility to inform the relevant agencies that you no longer wish to claim means tested benefits. So it is your mistake - not that of the Job Centre Plus.

SarEl

Ladywriter1968 wrote: »

I would just like to say thanks to those who have advised and helped on here, but people that dont understand how housing benefits works and assumed they paid it all to us are wrong, the housing bens are paid through the councils not directly to us. And I really came here to help and people who dont understand the system cant really help and saying it was my fault does not help me, and its not our fault.

We informed the council and the housing benefits and they noted it down on their pc, but then still continued to pay the housing benefits to the council though.

So No it aint our fault. Anyone on here who wants to argue the point with me I just wont reply to. Only give me advice not rows.

You get what you get - but it is you who are in the wrong so do not come and ask people for advice then insult their intelligence by claiming you know better. Housing benefit do in many cases, pay direct to the claimant. You did not state that you are a tenant of the Council, not that it is relevant to any of the points made. It is YOUR claim for housing benefit, not the Job Centre's. They have no right or duty to cancel your claim simply because you are no longer claiming JSA. If you READ the information provided to every housing benefit claimant when their claim is accepted, it tells you in plain English and in black and white that if you return to work or your circumstances change in any way, you must notify the Council's housing benefit section in writing straight away, or you may receive benefit that you are not entitled to and have to repay it.

The other points made her are also vaild. If you have been paying your rent (as you should have done) since your circumstances changed, then you will have paid double the amount of rent due since you also received housing benefit. You therefore have plenty of money in your rent account - either to not pay the rent for a couple of weeks and use the money to pay back the overpayment from housing benefit, or, as it actually usual for council tenants, for the Council housing department to refund the overpayment to housing benefits.

Of course, the only real issue here is if you have not paid rent, in which case you will owe both the rent and the housing benefit repayment, but since you have been working you have no reason to have failed to pay rent that you knew you owed, so that cannot possibly be the case.

You seem to only be interested in answers which absolve you of any responsibility to cough up the money that you owe. You won't get any because there aren't any. You can't blame others for things that you did or didn't do - it's your responsibility to sort these things out, and if you didn't read the information that you were given, then that is your problem. Least of all can you blame people here since they seem to know the rules for housing benefit better than you do.

redz

SarEl wrote: »

It is not the JobCentre's responsibility or legal duty to inform the Council of the termination of your claim,
JCP has a responsibility to ensure public funds are administered correctly.
and they have no powers to do so.
Yes they have. All changes are notified automatically to the local authority via the authority's RAT terminals.
The Council could not, in fact, act on such information
Yes they can; and they do so on a regular basis.
- it is your claim and between you and the Council.
You got that right

To the OP, even though it wasn't your fault the overpayment occured you are still liable for the debt; the days when debts could be written off due to official error have gone. As you are completely blameless you will be able to arrange to repay the debt in small, managable installments.

Hope this helps somewhat :beer:

sharski

Ladywriter...

You are correct (partially!) - when you sign off over the phone with the JC, the JC with your permission, gathers info for the council to inform them you have found work - this enables any 4 week run on, etc.
However, the JC don't 'physically' TELL the council.... at the end of the telephone call, the software used to gather the info AUTOMATICALLY sends an email to your local council with all the information.

Therefore, it wasn't the JC who didn't inform the council.... it sounds like the council either didn't act on the email or have lost it.

It sounds as though you need to be blaming the council, not the JC!!!

sulkisu

Ladywriter - It doesn't really matter how it happened, but it is very easy to resolve. As you have been paying the rent yourselves while HB have been the rent at the same time, your rent account will be in credit (because the rent has been paid twice). All that you need to do is contact your housing department - they can arrange for the housing benefit to be transferred back to the LA.

Edit: Also housing benefit is not always paid directly to the landlord - many people choose to receive it directly. They then pay the landlord themselves.

Oldernotwiser

Ladywriter1968 wrote: »

Ok I dont have a clue what you mean here, the housing benefits do not pay the money directly to the person (us) they pay it through the system to the council, I am not sure quite how it all works but all I know is they pay the housing benefits that way, we didnt know they had paid it, we have been paying full rates, we just received a letter stating an over payment of housing benefits, and quite frankly I came here for advice not critisism, I assume that some people dont have a clue how housing bens work, people seem to assume that they give the money to the person, meaning us. They dont its all done on their system somehow.

It would have helped if you'd said that you were in council housing in the first place!