Warning to all single tax credit claimants !!

crystal_clear

Please all single parents claiming tax credits the HMRC are using credit agency to check if anything from ex-partner is registered to your home and there compliance teams are stopping your tax credits if they find anything coming to the door or registered in anyway to your address. In a lot of cases its been reported that many innoccent people mainly mums have had 2 year overpayments bills and claims stopped overnight.

doubt me? please read some of the horror stories on other forums by googling '' tax credit claim i am not single '' . I personally couldnt believe some of the horror stories I read and was quite suprised that Martin himself has not (not that i have seen) highlighted this to warn others of the pitfalls having post coming or car insurances in both names.

crystal clear

P.S. maybe a good idea to keep this post at top for all to see that could be affected BUMP !!

nonnatus

Hmmmm.

Whilst I have every sympathy with single parents who are mistakenly targetted, I'm sure that if he/she is genuinely NOT living with partner, it's easy enough to prove.

On the other hand, I am in favour of any measure being taken to crack down on those people who claim to be single for benefit purposes, whilst basically conducting a full relationship, from which they also benefit financially...

It boils down to that old chestnut again: If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear!

kingfisherblue

My ex husband left our family home over seven years ago to start a new family in a different town. I have been single since then. However, the occasional letter still arrives for him, so presumably he is still on some mailing list as living at this address.

I'm not going to worry, though, as I have done nothing wrong.

BigAunty

I would think this type of activity is quite routine data matching to try and identify fraud and is nothing new.

Certainly, we've seen posts on this forum from lone parents who have faced compliance interviews, unsurprisingly, because their ex uses their address for their post.

RAS

I have no problem wiith compliance interviews but I do have a problem with benefits being stopped with immediate effect in this situation.

1. I believe it is experian who are running these data checks, and they get paid for every positive lead they provide.

2. When a couple split, the departing partner may not have an alternative address that they can use for official purposes for some weeks or months.

3. When a couple split, there is absolutely nothing that the remaining partner can do to force the departing partner to change their address on all their accounts, so the single claimant is punished for the lack of action of the departing partner. Where there is malice, this is a great way to cause havoc by doing nothing.

4. As Experian will know only too well, in many cases creditors will refuse to allow the departing partner to remove their name from joint accounts, if it is overdrawn for example.

5. If there are other debts (CT, utilities etc) in joint names this action leaves the remaining partner with the choice of leaving the departing partnerts name on, in the hope that they will contribute to the debt and that it may be recognised as a debt of the marriage if they divorce and risking their benefits, or putting the whole of the debt into their own name in order to avoid having their benefits stopped. Neither seems very fair to me.

I do not approve of mock singledom but the reality of lives and the theory behind this sort of hunt seem to be at odds.

clearingout

I agree with RAS, thing just aren't that simple and 'if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about' is also not that simple in this context.

My ex moved out of our martial home into a buy to let property we jointly owned. He never changed his car details with the DVLA and we had joint bank accounts that took nearly 2 years to close down and appropriately deal with. I would hazard a guess that he wouldn't have bothered registering to vote at the new address and certainly, if the number of bailiffs and court reps I had on the door step are anything to go by, he didn't let anyone know he'd moved!

It is worrying genuinely single people may fall foul of rules like this. I get the need for them but I don't understand how you can 'prove' your ex has moved out and you're genuinely single if he/she doesn't co-operate. I can tell you he's moved, but if the electoral role, DVLA, bills and bank accounts say otherwise, who do you believe?

Becles

RAS wrote: »

3. When a couple split, there is absolutely nothing that the remaining partner can do to force the departing partner to change their address on all their accounts, so the single claimant is punished for the lack of action of the departing partner. Where there is malice, this is a great way to cause havoc by doing nothing.

This is what worries me.

He has a mail redirect on post for him so anything for him coming to my address gets removed by the postman before delivery and forwarded onto his new address.

I've had debt collectors turning up here and various phones calls on my landline, including the bank who he had his current account with when he was with me.

If he is still using my address, it's not something I can do anything about and it would be harsh for me to be penalised for something I cannot control.

anguk

It's not a new thing, a couple of years ago when we had our housing benefit review the housing officer asked about the people in our household because my adult son was still linked with us. My son hadn't lived here for years but the BT phone bill is still in his name (we pay it but just hadn't bothered to change it). For us it was quite easy to prove he wasn't here, we just had to give his address and he's on the electoral roll, bank accounts & bills etc all at his address. Plus he lives hundreds of miles away!

But I can see how it could be difficult for some people to prove if they've got a non-compliant ex.

crystal_clear

My post was aimed at the many genuine single claimants who have made genuine claims as single. After reading some of the horror stories how HMRC has stopped so many claims and left many a poor mother in extreme financial hardships with young children to get childcare for and feed etc etc thus forcing them to give up work or starve in some cases, and all because they were not aware of what the ex had in a credit report on there address. A simple car insurance search was one example i read the ex had done this (never took out the policy) but by getting a price search using the same address was enough to get this ladies tax credit investigated and stopped with a back payment demand. A nightmare for this lady as i believe the information she could give was limited on the ex although she could prove she had no other form of ties other than that.

Yes i do totally agree all false claims should be stopped and I am in no way trying to help scammers get away with this.

But i really do feel for the genuine claimants that have been dragged into question and penalised for not having known what the ex has used the address for and if everything is not totally changed to there new address (i think i read 6 months was the acceptable time frame from a split to change everything). The HMRC compliance are not following there guidelines fully and just intermitantly accepting some evidence and refusing the same from others. Its more a case of guilty and no matter how much you prove your innocence, if god says your guilty then thats it you owe what god says, now go away starve or reclaim but that will have to be further investigated and could take several weeks again if your lucky you will get awarded but if the ex wont co-operate and re register anything still from your address to there latest basically your left to try find the basic money to pay mortgage/ rent bills, feed, clothes, childcare etc etc with the biggest minus figure you have ever had in your life.

Yes I have a heart and feel for all the geniune ones caught up in this latest goverment overhaul as it wasn't planned to protect the genuine claimants it was planned to reduce the deficit with no regard for innocent casualties along the way.

crystal clear

danielanthony

People move house and change their address details every day; I imagine the relevant authorities would find it hard to believe that two people had not managed to separate their financial affairs after two years. Having your post redirected can only be done for up to 12 months which is how long Royal Mail feel is a reasonable period of time to have all your details changed after moving house. Unfortunately as has been pointed out before, many couples don’t actually live together but are still in a relationship, my dad works abroad most of the year for example. It would be easy for my mum to claim they have split up and claim benefits. What I am saying it is hard to determine genuine cases and the government has a responsibility to make sure taxpayers money is being spent appropriately.

crystal_clear

anguk wrote: »

It's not a new thing, a couple of years ago when we had our housing benefit review the housing officer asked about the people in our household because my adult son was still linked with us. My son hadn't lived here for years but the BT phone bill is still in his name (we pay it but just hadn't bothered to change it). For us it was quite easy to prove he wasn't here, we just had to give his address and he's on the electoral roll, bank accounts & bills etc all at his address. Plus he lives hundreds of miles away!

But I can see how it could be difficult for some people to prove if they've got a non-compliant ex.

I have no idea when housing benefit started doing like above reviews. But from what i have read on the HMRC this link they use with Experian is a recent thing since the back end of last year. They have brought in a task force to deal with the situation and i read they randomly flagged 200,000 claims and sent letters out Jan or Feb this year and are now over run trying to deal with the high volume of calls that many are not even getting through. The ex may live in a shared house thats not safe to have post sent to or may move about a lot, dont have credit but do have a bank account registered at the claimants address or driving licence but because they dont have proof to give HMRC of actually living elsewhere that can be confirmed by Experian then it becomes deemed they are still a couple and tax credit stop xxxxxx back payment required. Also its fraud to claim as a couple if you are single. So unless you move ex back in properly or get them to comply and change all details away from the home............. make fresh claim and somehow pay back all overpayment HMRC 1 claimant -1 there appears to be no logical reasoning in many case HMRC have you every which way you look at it.

crystal clear