tax credit over payment from 5 yrs ago

lucyj2011

i just rung to pay 2 over payments (which i knew about and were smallish) the woman then said 'oh you have an over payment from 05/06 for just over £3500!!!!' i knew nothing about this and its the 1st time it has been mentioned. she couldnt give me anymore details as the final amount hasn't been calculated yet.
they messed all my payments up around that time and i was having to go to the local office every week and collect a giro cheque.
do i have to pay any of it back as my situation hadn't changed for years before or after and they had all my details correct?

rogerblack

lucyj2011 wrote: »

do i have to pay any of it back as my situation hadn't changed for years before or after and they had all my details correct?

You may not have to pay it back, but this isn't certain.
You need to find out when the decision was made that there was an overpayment, and if you were notified (or if they claim you were notified) on this.
Getting a complete copy of your file under the data protection act may help in discovering this.
Phone them, and ask for a copy of your file, they should be able to tell you where to contact.

leromancer

aaaaaaaaah interesting, we can get a copy of our file???? I apparently was overpaid 4/5 years ago. I was unemployed for 6 months after the end of my maternity leave and they calculated the wrong type of unemployment benefit which of course they say is my fault but I don't know how to prove the contrary since everything was said by phone! Anyway 5 years later I'm still paying back and it's downright weird Seems like my payments never go down, I just can't understand how they calculate things at the tax credit office ((( All that means we really struggle when we should actually do alright!

System

rogerblack wrote: »

Phone them, and ask for a copy of your file, they should be able to tell you where to contact.

No write to them and make a "Subject Access Request" under the data protection act.Ask for copies of all correspondence and a CD of all your recorded calls.
When you have that then you can decide if you have grounds to dispute the overpayment.