Housing benefit...is it worth appealing or should I take the blame and pay up?

dseventy

shady63 wrote: »

No, it didn't. I was sending in DP's wage slips as and when they asked for them so assumed everything was right. DP gets paid 178/week after tax, we got around £143/week CTC & WTC, his petrol for work is £40/week, we were paying £80/week rent, 102/month council tax 10/week electric, £20/week gas, his insurance was £105/month, plus TV license and other bills and debts. Things felt tight actually!

As I said in the first post, I also feel we should pay it back because even though I wasn't aware, I was being paid too much. We've had the money, they obviously need it back. Just wondered if I was lying down and "taking it" too readily as everyone in RL has said it's disgusting and I shouldn't have to pay this.

You had an income of £321 a week and some element of rent paid?

No warning lights?

D70

shady63

dseventy wrote: »

If you didn't understand it you should not assume that the DWP will take care of it.

If you had wrote a letter showing your change of circs and a recorded delivery note, people here would be backing you.

But to say you didn't know how it works and assumed x told y when it was on your own award letters does not really wash.

D70

Why on Earth would I know how DWP and HB/CTB computer systems work. I have no access to them!

I DID send a letter to say DP had started working, along with his contract, sent recorded, I still have the receipt in my file. I then called to check they'd received it and this is where the WTC/CTC discussion started.

dseventy

shady63 wrote: »

Why on Earth would I know how DWP and HB/CTB computer systems work. I have no access to them!
.

Then don't assume anything and let them know?

Is it just me that finds this whole situation....well... a bit wierd?

D70

shady63

dseventy wrote: »

You had an income of £321 a week and some element of rent paid?

No warning lights?

D70

No, why would there be? We still have the exact same income are paid around £33/week HB. These are the new figures from HB and this time I checked by using an online benefits checker. Learnt my lesson the hard way. I feel really naive now, but I honestly thought the HB assessors would calculate the correct rate based on the info they had, I was told they'd be getting our new WTC/CTC figures so I believed them. I actually have a letter stating, "we will complete a check with the department for work and pensions to confirm your entitlement to child tax credits and working tax credits" Why would I doubt that after it'd had been confirmed on the phone and after this method was used for my last claim?

thescottgang

I,m not sure is this is the right place to post this, i,m new lol. Just need to ask some advice about housing benefit. My wage is going down in a couple of months by quite alot and i might qualify for housing benefit, but my firm have now said they will give us a fuel allowance for travel to work as the premises have now moved and i will need the travel allowance to pay for it as it is now far away. Will housing benefit take this an in come even though i will be using it for fuel ? Help would be very much appreciated, i keep going round and round on other sites.

pandaspot

But you should have double checked it, like a said the hb case load is probably 1000's.

You have been naive, just remember to notify them asap in future, will prevent this happening again.

pandaspot

thescottgang wrote: »

I,m not sure is this is the right place to post this, i,m new lol. Just need to ask some advice about housing benefit. My wage is going down in a couple of months by quite alot and i might qualify for housing benefit, but my firm have now said they will give us a fuel allowance for travel to work as the premises have now moved and i will need the travel allowance to pay for it as it is now far away. Will housing benefit take this an in come even though i will be using it for fuel ? Help would be very much appreciated, i keep going round and round on other sites.

Best to start your own thread. But yes fuel expenses paid to you will be included in the calc as it to get to work

property.advert

pandaspot wrote: »

Yeah you are supposed to check your award letter. I don't want to sound harsh but the hb office has a case load of thousands, and unless the assessor who told you they would check your wtc set a diary date them this will be missed. Cause will not remember you or your claim as they deal with 30 claims or more a day.

Any changes you have to notify the la about. It's written in the declaration you sign when you claim, and probably on the back of your notification letters to notify them straight away.

If you didn't understand the letters sent then you should have rang the council.

Another thing to bear in mind is that reviews do not happen any longer with claims.

If you want to appeal you can, but in my opinion and experience I don't think you will win

Sorry

So these people who dole out taxpayers cash on housing benefit have no duty of care, are not periodically checked, do not appear very well trained, are incapable of diarising matters for future review and take no responsibility for their mistakes ?

That is what you are saying. I put it to you that once all the relevant papers have been submitted, then it is the responsibility of the officer in charge to make sure that the correct calculations are performed. The recipient layperson cannot possibly be expected to know more than the "expert" who screwed up the claim in the first place !

shady63

pandaspot wrote: »

But you should have double checked it, like a said the hb case load is probably 1000's.

You have been naive, just remember to notify them asap in future, will prevent this happening again.

Yep, I realize now I need to triple check everything and will always send every bit of documentation I feel may be relevant, regardless of what they say to me, in writing and over the phone. Just strikes me as odd that they didn't even ask for the CTC evidence but included CTC in our income calculations, when at the time I didn't even know the figures as I hadn't received my TC amended award notice!

I probably won't appeal because I accept that we've had too much money, and it's gotta go back, it's just a shock to be told one month we're owed money and the next month we owe a substantial amount.

I will go and see community law tomorrow to see about launching a complaint/investigation to see what went wrong so that I can ensure it doesn't happen again with any of my claims and hopefully they'll let me know where I stand. Will take a while to re-pay though, this is our biggest debt now, we were about to become debt free in a couple of months! :rotfl:

pandaspot

shady63 wrote: »

Yep, I realize now I need to triple check everything and will always send every bit of documentation I feel may be relevant, regardless of what they say to me, in writing and over the phone. Just strikes me as odd that they didn't even ask for the CTC evidence but included CTC in our income calculations, when at the time I didn't even know the figures as I hadn't received my TC amended award notice!

I probably won't appeal because I accept that we've had too much money, and it's gotta go back, it's just a shock to be told one month we're owed money and the next month we owe a substantial amount.

I will go and see community law tomorrow to see about launching a complaint/investigation to see what went wrong so that I can ensure it doesn't happen again with any of my claims and hopefully they'll let me know where I stand. Will take a while to re-pay though, this is our biggest debt now, we were about to become debt free in a couple of months! :rotfl:

Yes send a letter of complaint so at least it brought up with assessor involved. They will set the recovery amount of the overpayment at £9.90 a week from your benefit. What you could do is ask them to reduce the recovery amount. They should send you an income and expenditure form, ask them to reduce it to something more affordable

Sorry this happened to you