CTC and WTC Overpayment over 2 tax years - Demanding money without explanation

misssarahleigh

My mother has claimed WTC and CTC for some time.

4 years ago they rung my mother on her mobile and said they were the benifit office and she owed £1900 in overpayments, would she like to pay by credit card.

My mother found this very odd and thought it was a scam telephone call and hung up refusing to hand over her card details (as well as not knowing what they were talking about or having that kind of money).

We then a few months later got some letters saying the same thing. We range and they said the £1900 was four different payments. 2 wtc and 2 ctc and over 2 tax years. I asked them to send me detials of this to understand what went wrong and how they knew.

They sent nothing and it was forgotten.

2 years later a woman knocks on the door demanding the £1900. We explain what happened and she gave us a form to send. I detailed the same on the form asking for futher information to explained the situation.

Recieve a reply stating we owe the money, the decision is final and cannot be appealed (i remember this clearly as i thought not being able to appeal a decision wasn't right and surley we had some rights).

2 years on we come to jan 2011 and letters through the door asking for the money. The woman i rang this time did manage to explain some things. out of four lump sums they say overpayments were becasue.

1. 2 month gap between me leaving college and the benifit for ctc for me stopping (fair enough)
2. working my mothers wage incorrectly
3. not recieving a renewal (my mother did this every year for 15 years and they state one was 4 months late so she forfits the 4 months she got?)
4. (cannot remember, shall ahve to update when i look at notes)

We did recieve some letters detailing that they said it was their fault the overpayment of some monies. Others we were not informed of at all until they lumped it in one big bill and sent it to use without explanation.

My questions are:

How long do they have to claim this money back before it's written off (if at all)

Do we have to pay it even though they admit some was there mistake?

Can we make them detail properly what the mistakes were?

We don't want to wriggle out of the money if it is correctly owed back. Just a lot of money to pay (which my mother doens't have) and considering the mess the organisation is known to make i want to be sure this money is actually owed.

Newly_retired

Normally you would have 30 days from the date of any decision letter to challenge the decision or amount.
If you supplied the correct information and they misused it or failed to act on it you would have a good case.
Try your local CAB - they should be able to help.

calleyw

Newly_retired wrote: »

If you supplied the correct information and they misused it or failed to act on it you would have a good case.
Try your local CAB - they should be able to help.

Don't they send an award letter and then it is up to you to check everything on it.

If the mothers earning where incorrect on the award notice why did she not notify someone.

If that is the case then, it is down to the claimant why they had a over payment.

Yours

Calley

System

misssarahleigh wrote: »

1. working my mothers wage incorrectly
2. not recieving a renewal (my mother did this every year for 15 years and they state one was 4 months late so she forfits the 4 months she got?)
3. (cannot remember, shall ahve to update when i look at notes)

We did recieve some letters detailing that they said it was their fault the overpayment of some monies. Others we were not informed of at all until they lumped it in one big bill and sent it to use without explanation.

My questions are:

How long do they have to claim this money back before it's written off (if at all)

Do we have to pay it even though they admit some was there mistake?

Can we make them detail properly what the mistakes were?

We don't want to wriggle out of the money if it is correctly owed back. Just a lot of money to pay (which my mother doens't have) and considering the mess the organisation is known to make i want to be sure this money is actually owed.

Tax Credits in the present form has only been in existance since 2003.

If they say your mum failed to do her renewal in one of those years then she would have been sent a reminder and if she didn't respond to that then the claim would have been terminated and she would have had to make a brand new claim. There would have been a period of non-payment whilst she waited for the new claim to go into payment. She should remember that. She would then have been deemed to have forfeited (sp) the right to the provisional payments she received from April until the date of termination. Provisional payments are issued on condition the claimant confirms their income in the previous tax year via the annual declaration.

If you want a fuller explanation of the individual years in which the overpayments arose and what has been remittted due to errors on TCO's behalf then write to them again asking for the details in chronological order.

Or make an appointment at your local HMRC enquiry centre http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/enq/main.htm
and ask one of the advisors there if they can shed any light on what has gone on. I should point out that they can only view notes going back a couple of years though they can view everything to do with awards. If you want details of notes going back further then you can ask for them via making a "Subject Access request".

HTH

misssarahleigh

The mathematics involved in working it all out it very complex. Not like other benefits that are a set fee which would be noticed.

My mother has always filled in the paper work correctly and never seen anything which would indicate they had the wrong information.

Bear in mind that this came through many years later and with know explanation, having only just found that there are four totally different reasons for the four separate repayments.

misssarahleigh

Pam17 wrote: »

Tax Credits in the present form has only been in existance since 2003.

If they say your mum failed to do her renewal in one of those years then she would have been sent a reminder and if she didn't respond to that then the claim would have been terminated and she would have had to make a brand new claim. There would have been a period of non-payment whilst she waited for the new claim to go into payment. She should remember that. She would then have been deemed to have forfeited (sp) the right to the provisional payments she received from April until the date of termination. Provisional payments are issued on condition the claimant confirms their income in the previous tax year via the annual declaration.

If you want a fuller explanation of the individual years in which the overpayments arose and what has been remittted due to errors on TCO's behalf then write to them again asking for the details in chronological order.

Or make an appointment at your local HMRC enquiry centre http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/enq/main.htm
and ask one of the advisors there if they can shed any light on what has gone on. I should point out that they can only view notes going back a couple of years though they can view everything to do with awards. If you want details of notes going back further then you can ask for them via making a "Subject Access request".

HTH

THanks for the info. My mother is positive nothing was sent late and has no letters from them to indicate that. But as she is trying to remember something going back 5 to 7 years which isn't easy.

We wrote asking for the information which is when they replied that our complaint was not upheld and we could not appeal. We only asked for the information.

My principle is that if they want the money they should be able to provide evidence and we should not have to jump through hoops. Is it Not up to them to prove it, not up to us to prove we don't?

Even if we were to get this information I doubt it would be clear enough to work out without somebody explaining what has gone wrong, not to mention the hours of work to go through it all. I resent the burden is on us