Housing benefit overpayments

Annelien

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Considering you may have been lucky not to have been prosecuted in the criminal court for benefit fraud, I would recommend you bend over backwards to keep in the council's good books.

dseventy wrote: »

You'll get no help here for being caught cheating.

I suggest you pay up and count your chickens that you don't have a criminal record.

D70

AnxiousMum wrote: »

I'd go with the bending over backwards! I'm quite certain that if they chose to, and the overpayment was due to fraud on your part (you do say you 'got done' for it.....so assume you mean you got caught claiming fraudulently?) - they can still prosecute you if they wish. They will often make an agreement to have the monies paid back, but then the claimants are surprised that they get called in for an appointment so the prosecution ball can start rolling. Be grateful you have so far been let off of the prosecution route, pay your debt back as quickly as you can or they have asked, and hope you keep them happy by doing that and they don't go the prosecution route.

If you were claiming fraudulently, you had extra money all that time - now it's time to suck in the belt and pay your debt back.

I am frankly quite shocked at the amount of people immediately assuming the claim was fraudulent. I myself have had problems with housing benefit and am currently repaying them, not because of a mistake on my part I might add... Altho if you ask the council they will quickly tell you it WAS my fault. In my situation I had informed them I was changing jobs and handed them the last payslip of the old job and the first two payslips of the new job. Almost 7 months later when my GP signed me off, I went back to the council to let them know I wouldn't be working and handed them the GP notes and the last payslip and p45 for the job I would be giving up due to health problems.
The council then turned around to me and said I'd lied to them about how much I earned as this last payslip and my p45 showed I had been working full time and they had only put me down as part time.
Now, where they went wrong was that they had taken the last payslip from my old job and decided that that was how many hours I always worked even tho I gave them the first 2 slips from the new job!!!!
They claimed I never gave them that and it seems nobody made a note of it even tho I went in and handed them over personally!

I am now still paying them back for a grand total of about £2k. And I sure know better than to trust they made notes of everything and they have the CORRECT information...

Now, I think all of you who made assumptions owe this guy an apology as you don't know the situation and you have no right to judge without knowing more.

AnxiousMum

Annelien wrote: »

I am frankly quite shocked at the amount of people immediately assuming the claim was fraudulent. I myself have had problems with housing benefit and am currently repaying them, not because of a mistake on my part I might add... Altho if you ask the council they will quickly tell you it WAS my fault. In my situation I had informed them I was changing jobs and handed them the last payslip of the old job and the first two payslips of the new job. Almost 7 months later when my GP signed me off, I went back to the council to let them know I wouldn't be working and handed them the GP notes and the last payslip and p45 for the job I would be giving up due to health problems.
The council then turned around to me and said I'd lied to them about how much I earned as this last payslip and my p45 showed I had been working full time and they had only put me down as part time.
Now, where they went wrong was that they had taken the last payslip from my old job and decided that that was how many hours I always worked even tho I gave them the first 2 slips from the new job!!!!
They claimed I never gave them that and it seems nobody made a note of it even tho I went in and handed them over personally!

I am now still paying them back for a grand total of about £2k. And I sure know better than to trust they made notes of everything and they have the CORRECT information...

Now, I think all of you who made assumptions owe this guy an apology as you don't know the situation and you have no right to judge without knowing more.

Hmm, his opening post claims 'I got done.......', and further, he states that he knows what was done was wrong, and even further, that he was in a bad place when he did this!'.......so, no, I don't think an apology is required, just helpful advice so that he can recover from this poor judgement on his part to do it in the first place, and have it sorted with as little detriment to his future as possible.

I think if the OP had a problem with my post, the op would've pointed it out rather than thanked me in his post.

Now whose accused someone of something? Don't worry about an apology - it really doesn't bother me

laneyg

I too ended up in a situation through no fault of my own paying our local council back £2k

I started a new job gave them everything, spent 2 hours with the woman at the office as she inputted all my details for her to say oops i put them on the wrong person and had to go through it all again. when i received a pay rise of £15 i brought in my letter and payslip to get a phonecall the next day telling me i should never have received the hb in the first place and was i in a position to pay it back straight away, answer from me "No you have my bank statements i earned £14k a year, i agreed to pay £40 per month which thankfully have been managing to pay a bit extra every month as i am now in a better paid job, although i went through another period of been out of work i darent apply for benefit as i couldnt go through the stress of the cockups again. I know i could have appealled it but the stress i did not want. I was thinking of asking them to write off the remainder owing, anyone got any thoughts on that one please, which is now down to £600

My lesson is never apply for benefit again, the stress was awful, I just hope I'm never in this siutation again