LHA Overpayment - council are clawing back too much. What should I do?

ElleWoods

About six months ago I contacted the council about a change in circumstances and it turned out I'd been overpaid on my LHA and CTB for about 10 months (my fault totally - due to a complete oversight on my part I forgot to inform them of a change that had occured). I owed just under £200 of CTB which I paid back to them in a lump sum. I also owed them just under £2k of overpaid LHA but as I couldn't afford to pay that back in a lump sum, they said they'd claw it back from my future LHA payments.

Things are extremely tight lately so I've been re-looking at all my finances. Today I contacted the council to ask how much was left to pay on my LHA debt and to ask the exact amount they were taking off me (I've never been told how much they're taking). The woman I spoke to said they are clawing back £22.70 per week back from me. I queried this as it seems very high (over £90 per month) and I mentioned I'd read somewhere that there is a limit to the amount they can claw back per week. She said no, they can take what they like and don't even have to discuss or agree it with me. The woman also said that I could apply to have this reduced but would have to complete a form with all my income and outgoings and they'd decide whether to reduce the payments or not, so she's sending me the form out.

After getting off the phone, I looked on the council's website and it says the usual amount of claw back they recover is £10.20pw, although they can claw back up to £13.60pw if the overpayment is due to fraud. In my case I wasn't overpaid due to fraud - as I said, it was an oversight on my part but not a deliberate one - but even if they viewed it as fraud they should only be taking £13.60pw off my LHA. However they are taking £9.10pw more than that off me.

Needless to say I'm going to write them a letter and print off a copy of their website's page to send with it, but is there anything else I can do? Should I send the letter with the form to ask them to reduce payments, or do you think they'd reduce payments just based on a letter (as I don't really want to complete my personal details for them to judge me over)? Can I make an official complaint and if so, how do I do it? Like many on here, I'm so skint that I could cry, and to find out that they've been taking more money than they should have been for the last six months while I've been struggling to make ends meet makes me feel really upset. If anyone has any advice on how to approach this, I'd really appreciate it.

turkleton

Are you still in receipt of Housing Benefit and are you working? If the answer to both of these questions is yes it is likely that they are recovering the correct amount. This is because they can take a maximum of £10.20 plus half of your earned income disregard (this amount should be on your HB notification letter). A maximum of £10.20 would only be taken if you weren't working.

You can request that the council reduce your recovery but most councils would want to see details of your outgoings especially is the overpayment is large so that they can decide what is reasonable.

If you want to complain do it in writing and address it to the Benefits Manager heading it "official complaint". It depends on whether the council have actually done anything wrong as to what they will do but it's worth a letter.

ElleWoods

Thanks for the response. Yes, I'm still in receipt of LHA (but not CTB) and I work part time. It doesn't say anything about this on their website so if you're correct, that's very misleading. It literally says the maximum they will take is £10.20, or £13.60 to claw back fraudulent overpayments. I'll go and find my LHA award letter and find out what my earned income disregard is to see if that works out right.

My LHA goes down in January due to the changes to LHA rates, so things will be especially tight from the New Year and this doesn't help.