letter says i have been overpaid £13,726 !

delain

welshgirl39 wrote: »

so now i am even more confused...oh well. will just wait and see what happens when i seek legal advice.
Thanks all again

Good luck. Haven't read the whole thread but HMRC do have a page with their guidelines on, someones probably linked it already.

Might be worth getting all your paperwork to show solicitor.

Must be awful stuck in the same house, I went through a dv relationship and the trauma takes a long time to heal and makes the unknown scary.

We didn't have our own home though and I did move out. Best thing i ever did, you should think about it.

dinkytoy

welshgirl39 wrote: »

so now i am even more confused...oh well. will just wait and see what happens when i seek legal advice.
Thanks all again

Can you afford legal help?

Many solicitors offer a free half hour advice session but you wont get legal aid until until your financial situation is unraveled. Good luck.

londonlydia

Interesting case- if they say you have been overpayed because you're a couple in their eyes- does that mean you will be jointly reponsible for paying the money back then?

Plenty of people live together who are not couples, and who share bills. I shared a student house for a year with 5 people and split bills, and I can safely say I'm not in some multi person relationship, thanks!

Chrissiew

londonlydia wrote: »

Interesting case- if they say you have been overpayed because you're a couple in their eyes- does that mean you will be jointly reponsible for paying the money back then?

Plenty of people live together who are not couples, and who share bills. I shared a student house for a year with 5 people and split bills, and I can safely say I'm not in some multi person relationship, thanks!

I guess you can also safely say you are not married to any of the 5 people and have children with them Its a completly different senario than just sharing a house with another roomie.

FBaby

The issue here through is that OP did take actions in the past to have him remove from the property because of violence yet didn't do anything when he came back. Surely if there were issues of violence that granted a court order the OP wouldn't have sat around doing nothing for many years just because her ex had a right to stay in the property. This is a very different situation to partners separating amicably and ageing to remain the property for a few months until they can sell the property or find somewhere else to stay. intending to live together purely to gain more benefits because they claim they can't afford their bills otherwise is fraud in the same way some couples claim to live separately because they get more benefit this way?

nottslass_2

When you first claimed tax credits your husband was not living at the same address - did you inform them of a change in circumstances when he moved back in ?

How do you support yourself - do you claim income support ? - when you claim IS you have to give details of anyone else who lives / moves into the property - as I'm sure you have informed them that your husband is still living at the same address this may help vsupport the fact that you are not living "as partners" as they will have done all the necessary validation checks.

Sixer

FBaby wrote: »

The issue here through is that OP did take actions in the past to have him remove from the property because of violence yet didn't do anything when he came back. Surely if there were issues of violence that granted a court order the OP wouldn't have sat around doing nothing for many years just because her ex had a right to stay in the property. This is a very different situation to partners separating amicably and ageing to remain the property for a few months until they can sell the property or find somewhere else to stay. intending to live together purely to gain more benefits because they claim they can't afford their bills otherwise is fraud in the same way some couples claim to live separately because they get more benefit this way?

It may well be. But I don't think anyone on this forum is equipped to offer more than unfounded opinion here. It may be that the OP doesn't even have an overpayment.

She needs proper advice from a qualified person and we should be advising her of that.

OP - nobody here can really help you more than telling you to get professional advice. Yours is a complex case with multiple factors. Anyone suggesting or advising otherwise is simply using personal opinion to tell you what they think "ought" or "should" be the case. Not what actually "is" the case.

Get advice.

welshgirl39

When i first claimed tax credits,my husband and i had a joint claim. As i was working then also i was in reciept of working tax credits.We seperated and i rang to inform them of this, he was at this address, they knew this and wrote to him here ! to which he replied, questions about joint claim if i remember correctly.my claim changed to a sinlge one. when i stopped work , i had the CTC element. I spoke to IS and was told i wouldnt qualify for a new claim as an element for my children was now being payed through CTC. I rang local council and wasnt eligible for any housing benefit as i thought i would have to pay a part of the mortgage to continue living in house , then the incident were my eldest daughter had to call the police, husband was arrested, i pressed charges but he got let off with a caution as first offence, i ended up in hospital for 3 days and in that time my mother had called in the police and the locks were changed by the bobby van i think it was called. Then i went to a solicitor and had an order taken out against him to enable me to go back to the house with the full intention of him or me moving out, he then had an order for a short period to stop him coming near me..so the violence episode happened after i had already started claiming CTC as a singe person. i didnt pursue any claim for any other benefit other than CTC as when my solicitor went back to court to sort me being put on to the deeds through some law as i had chidren, even though i was not named on mortgage,my husband agreed to pay all the mortgage. and that was how it carried on, we sorted the best way to cover the bills, seperatly ( although i can now see how its determined as sharing ) even though everything in seperate names. my income was my CTC and child benefit. so my claim has always been the same. i am going to make an appointment with solicotor in the morning and if a cost then will have to go CAB. Thanks to those offering good advice to seek professional he lp. If it turns out that our situation should never have meant i should have recieved CTC then obviously somehow it will have to be paid back, but my concern at the moment is where i go from here. i honestly thought i met the criteria for a single claim . and they must have aswell otherwise it would have never even started to be paid in the beginning.
will get advice straightaway

MOTHEROF4_2

Hi, sorry to here of your situation, I'm in the same situation I have three girls and have just won a occupation order to have my husband removed from the house because of violence, I'm ill with his abuse and I phoned the benefit office and explained that we were in the same house until the court case and they said it was ok for me to claim as a single person and told me to contact the child tax credit and claim as a single person, which I did and they had no problem with me claiming as a single person, and that was before I won the occupation order on march 28 2012. I cannot see a problem with your child tax credit they were very helpful to me, just try to explain I'm sending hug for you hope, it gets sorted soon it's bad enough dealing with domestic violence x

Wonderful100

I must be missing something here because if two people are contributing financially into a household income how can it then be a single claim?
The whole basis of any claim is dependant on the financial position of the household and not the persons individual personal living arrangements.
Yes OP you need concrete legal advice but this ceratinly does not mean that the answers are going to be more favourable than the ones Joe public can blatantly see for themselves.
Good luck with it all but please, please don't go in there not expecting the worst because the extra stress of being built up to possibly be knocked back down again will only hurt even more.