Medway council lied about overpayment recovery

Dunroamin

earthbound_misfit wrote: »

But how can they possibly expect him to pay it back, when it's the housing association who have the money?
I know they can make you pay back overpayments that weren't your fault, but that seems to be a red herring here - surely they should be chasing the person who directly received the money?

And what's the HA's take on the situation if they've received more than they're due?

Marisco

Yes I must say, the "nobody's fault" is a bit weird! It has to be somebody's fault, even if they call it a "mistake" and not fault! Years ago I had a tray with this on it:D

This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.
Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done

fluffymovie

Letters detailing the entitlement are sent to claimant and landlord if the latter is the recipient. If an overpayment occurs, it is recoverable from the tenant in most cases and not the person who was paid the benefit.

If you feel you don't owe the money, you can appeal. Recovery is placed on hold until the appeal is heard.

Dean0537

The coucil have took the money back from us not the HA even though we disnt get it in the first place. We have been informed that the payments were made by way of official error yet they still took it back, a housing benefits assesor has already confirmed it is not correct and the welfare specialist says its the worst legal example he has ever seem

Marisco

Have you had a word with the people the HB did go to? If so what did they say? If you have proof that you are not at fault, it might be an idea to show them that and ask for the money back.

Dunroamin

Marisco wrote: »

Have you had a word with the people the HB did go to? If so what did they say? If you have proof that you are not at fault, it might be an idea to show them that and ask for the money back.

Agreed, the OP seems to be approaching this @rse upwards!

bestpud

Were the HA paid twice for this period then? So you paid them and the council paid them?

Or, was it only the council paying them?

If the former then you can stop paying rent until the account is balanced again and pay it to the council instead. We did this many years ago when it happened to us.

If the latter, you can hardly argue you didn't know if you weren't paying rent when you should have been.

Seems obvious to me but maybe I'm missing something... :cool:

Mara69

If the overpayment was paid directly to the HA, then I would have thought it would be claimed from them. However, isn't it the case that they would adjust your rent account accordingly and therefore potentially leave a shortfall on your rent account? Or, your rent account is untouched and you repay the overpayment back to the LA.

Dunroamin

This is becoming like a game of "Twenty Questions" - could you give some concrete information about what has actually happened?

SuziQ

I agree with Bestpud if you didn't pay all or part of your rent due to the council (wrongly) paying the HA all or part of it, then you have saved on some rent and need to repay the council. If on the other hand, the HA was paid twice, then tell the council that and contact the HA to get the ball rolling with repayment from them.

Sounds to me like the OP thinks they should just get away without paying rent due to a council mistake though.