Advice on overpayments

Beautifulmess

I recently got my income support cut off due to apprantly not being entitled from January to July this year when they still paid me up to the 20th of July. I then applied for Job seekers and have been told I have to repay the overpayment of housing benefit, council tax and income support for like 8 months! It's jsut under £4k.

This obviously wasn't my fault so I don't see why I should have to pay it back, I've got all the evidence for the housing department that I was still living on income support and no other payments and even if I wasn't on income support I'd of been on job seekers if they'd only told me to swap over.

Has anyone been in this situation and what was the outcome? I have a CAB appointment soon and I've sent off bank statements for the 8 months and a front letter to the housing/council tax department. They surspended my account until they get this information and I appeal against the decision made by the benefits place.

tcr_3

Why did your Income Support cease ?

Beautifulmess

tcr wrote: »

Why did your Income Support cease ?

I went on it due to being under 21 and living alone with no family help and needing to go to college still. They cut it off apprantly because I turned 21 in December, altho my boyfriend has checked the website for what position you need to be in and thinks I'm still entitled to it.

Thats all I can think of why it was cut off, my social worker said they would but NOT to contact them until they sent me a letter, I'm making a complaint into the company she works for because the advice was wrong.

tcr_3

Were you claiming any other benefits/tax credits ? Might seem a daft question but when did your Mum last get Child Benefit for you ?

Beautifulmess

tcr wrote: »

Were you claiming any other benefits/tax credits ? Might seem a daft question but when did your Mum last get Child Benefit for you ?

No other benefits other then theones that come with it, housing and council tax. Ermm it would of either been when I was 18 or 16 (I was in foster care) so I don't know how it works, whether she still got it when I went into in foster care (age 11).

tcr_3

Apols for my insensitive question.

I'm struggling to come up with a reason for you getting Income Support. I can't see what your condition of entitlement was. It might be an official error on their part, i.e. they've made a mistake and paid you when they shouldn't have (assuming you haven't misled them about your circumstances). As to the overpayment of IS, I've seen them reduce such overpayments by the theoretical amount you would've qualified for had you received another benefit instead ... but in your case you were at college ... so it's not cut n dried that you'd have qualified for JSA at all.

Mm. You might need to get professional advice on this one via the CAB or Welfare Rights. I'm totally stumped.

Lady_gaga

are there not some instances where adults under 21 who have come out of care and into education qualify for income support?
I'm sure I've read it somewhere before, will need to go and see if I can find it...




•You are under 21, have no parents or are living away from your parents and are undertaking a full-time non-advanced course or approved unwaged training which you started (or were accepted to attend or enrolled on) before your 19th birthday.

Benefits_Bod

Income Support overpayment: If the overpayment was NOT caused by a misrepresentation of, or failure to to disclose, a material fact, it is not legally recoverable - no matter what the DWP may say.

Without more info about the reason(s) for the end of entitlement, it's impossible to advise on whether entitlement has been correctly determined.

As with tcr, I also can't quite remember whether an overpayment of Income Support can be offset against different social security benefits you would otherwise have been entitled to had you claimed them correctly.


Housing Benefit / Council Tax Benefit entitlement: In law, the end of IS isn't, in itself, enough for HB/CTB to be terminated. The LA should FIRST be asking for information / evidence about your circumstances in respect of the period to establish whether or not you were / still are entitled to HB/CTB.

In the event your entitlement turns out to be lower after being correctly assessed and this leaves a residual overpayment, see below.


Housing Benefit / Council Tax Benefit overpayment(s): The rules for HB/CTB overpayments are different compared to IS overpayments.

In short, the starting point is that ALL overpayments are legally recoverable. The only exception is where the overpayment(s) arose as a result of an error on the part of the council, or the DWP, or HMRC AND

1) you did not contribute to the cause of the overpayment; nor
2) could you reasonably have been expected to realise there was an overpayment at either the time of payment(s) or at the time of any notice relating to the payment(s).

If an overpayment of any benefit if "recoverable", pursuit of actual recovery is at the discretion of the benefit paying body in question.


If, based on the above info, you think that either, or both, of the DWP and council have got it wrong, appeal - promptly. Bear in mind, an appeal against an IS decision must be sent to the DWP and an appeal against HB/CTB decisions must be sent to the local council. If both appeals proceed to a Tribunal, you can ask for them to be heard together.

IMPORTANT: Overpayments / admin procedures are highly complex areas of benefits law and the above is simply a concise version of the law. However, there is a huge body of legal authorities on this area and it is impossible to reflect that in one post.

fluffymovie

I would also add that the LA should offer you underlying entitlement for any overpayment.

What this means is that they may create an overpayment of say £4000 as in your case. But this isn't recoverable until they have considered underlying entitlement which is the money that you would have been entitled to at the time the overpayment was created. In your case for example, IS ended and you may have had a nil income, they then should reduce the overpayment by the benefit you would have had. If you had a nil income, you would have no overpayment.

Some LA's ask for a form to be completed and other's dont - there is no time limit on un/ent but we often only give 1 month but we have to offer it! If they haven't =ask them to do so.

flashnazia

Benefits_Bod wrote: »

Income Support overpayment: If the overpayment was NOT caused by a misrepresentation of, or failure to to disclose, a material fact, it is not legally recoverable - no matter what the DWP may say.

They get away with this one by claiming that the claimant didn't notify of change. Common line is "we have no record or your letters/calls".

Beautifulmess

I was entitled to income support because I was living alone from the age of 17 (I claimed from 18/19 years old) and I am 'estranged' from my family as per say, I was in education until July this year so it's not like I finished my course.

I have an appointment with CAB and I've been told because I wasn't earning I was at least entitled to Job Seekers IF I'd been told in January to swap over or that my Income Support was being stopped but they waited until July, 8 months later!



I was told by my social worker at the time not to contact the benefits place, but to wait for a end of income support letter. My circumstances never changed.