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Housing Benefit & Courts

Hi, newbie here so go easy on me please!!!

A bit of background first.

Me & my wife got married 2 years ago this week. When we got married she was living in a house with her daughter and I didn't want to move into that house as I had lined up a house for us, so for the first 3 months of our marriage we lived in separate houses and spent no more than 2 or 3 nights together in either of the addresses. I signed the lease on the new house on the 1st September 2010 and my wife gave her notice on her existing house to move out on 1st October 2010. When she left her old house, she informed the council that she was no longer living there and to cancel the claim for housing & council tax benefit. After she done this, we applied for H&CT Benefits jointly on the new property starting from October 1 2010.

She informed the Council of the relationship change as soon as we got married and the way we were living until the new house could be moved in to.

All well & good you could say & exactly how it should be?

The Problem

Two months or so ago, we had a Court Bailiff turn up on the doorstep completely unannounced with a warrant from the court regarding the final two months that my wife had been living at her old address stating that the Council claimed that they had overpaid her on the H&CT Benefits. The Council claim that my wife was not entitled to the final two months of her claim but give no reason why.
Apparently letters from the Court and the Council had been sent to her at our address but we had never received anything regarding this matter at all! The Court Bailiff explained that we could try to sort out some sort of plan with the Council but would have to submit it back through the Court. So we filled in the forms (both the application for Suspension of Warrant and the Court Fee Remission forms) and submitted them.

Today, she received a letter back from the Court stating that the Council have rejected our offer (even though technically we do not owe them anything!). My wife has tried talking to the Council directly but because it has gone through the Court, they will not even talk about anything with her.

The Council want us to pay them 2 x monthly payments of £383, which is way above our breadline disposable income. They state that some monthly bills we have are "beyond essential" even though we are locked in to contracts on these monthly bills and cannot lower monthly payments on them (we have tried already and the companies won't go any lower than what we are on because of contractual issues).

I am disabled and unable to work due to MS and other health issues, and my wife works 16 hours a week on minimum wage and for the rest of the time, cares for me.

The main issue is that they are taking my income from Incapacity and Disability benefits into my wife's income as the court clerk stated that we have to put down the household income rather than just my wife's even though the warrant and case is in her name. All of the bills are in my name and my wife's income from work pays for the day to day food bills. Child Benefit & Tax Credits get spent on her daughter (food & clothing) religiously (yes it is strange to find someone who does use the money given for the child for the purpose it is intended for!).

I am worried that the Court will either try to force us to pay an amount that we simply cannot afford or try to take possessions that do not belong to my wife but belong to myself (not that I have a lot!) or our landlord (house is fully furnished).

Has anyone here been in a similar situation and how did you get on with regards to negotiating with the Court etc.

Any constructive help would be gratefully received and be useful for us with regards to appearing before the Court (neither of us have been into a Court before other than myself on Jury Service 20 years ago!)

Comments

  • McKneff
    McKneff Posts: 38,857 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 4 July 2012 at 1:58PM
    Pool all your money together, its ridiculous the spend all tax credits and child benefit solely on a child if you are in debt with other things. What is your total household income.

    Set up a budget and see how much disposable income you have then.

    Do an SOA on here and we will try to help you budget even better.

    The first 3 months of your marriage would still probably have been viewed as a couple, even more so since you 'visited' 2 or 3 nights a week.
    make the most of it, we are only here for the weekend.
    and we will never, ever return.
  • Thing is we are not in "debt" other than this (which is not even a debt technically as we do not owe the money but because we never contested it first time round in court due to not knowing anything about it, we have no right to appeal).

    The Child Tax Credits & Child Benefit barely cover a growing child's food & clothing (price of school uniforms is extortionate!) so if we take that away from her, she will end up suffering as her father does nothing for her.

    We have already done a Budget sheet of income & outgoing for the Court, and we have literally £15 per month spare using amounts that CAB told us were acceptable. Proof of all monthly bills etc were provided to the Court but look to have been ignored by the Council when making their decision.
  • BigAunty
    BigAunty Posts: 8,310 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    There is a debt free wanabee board on this website that may offer more appropriate advice as although it relates to benefits in a way, what you've essentially got is a debt issue, so I think you are on the wrong board.
  • I'm sorry but I think you do owe the money. Once you Married your Wife lost the rights to claim as a single Parent. I know many Married couples who do not live together 7 days a week due to work purposes. My friends Husband has worked away most of their 25 year Marriage, he usually rents a flat wherever his contract is and comes home at weekends. Another friends hubby is in the RAF and lives in quarters during the week. Also Lorry Drivers, Oil riggers?
    If you were open and honest and told them I can see why you are upset that the error has now come to light. The best thing would be keep trying to renegotiate the repayment plan. If you show willing they are usually accomodating. I found this when I got behind on my council tax anyway. Good luck.
  • missapril75
    missapril75 Posts: 1,669 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary Combo Breaker
    I'm sorry but I think you do owe the money. Once you Married your Wife lost the rights to claim as a single Parent. I know many Married couples who do not live together 7 days a week due to work purposes. My friends Husband has worked away most of their 25 year Marriage, he usually rents a flat wherever his contract is and comes home at weekends. Another friends hubby is in the RAF and lives in quarters during the week. Also Lorry Drivers, Oil riggers?

    This is not strictly true.

    There are a couple of recent threads here touching on the subject.

    For means tested benefits, to be treated as a couple, whether married or not, the couple has to be sharing a household. The idea being not to penalise a couple for being married. If boyfriend/girlfriend were in a relationship but never sharing a household, they would not be a couple for benefit purposes and nor should a married couple not having shared a household.

    A couple temporarily apart and meaning to be living together again does count, providing they were sharing a household to begin with. Husband working away, lorry drivers etc would count within these definitions, but not where a couple have yet to move in together.

    It's probably a bit late for the OP to do anything about it now, especially as they've been sharing (each other's homes) regularly - albeit different households and that could count as sharing, even though there were two properties.

    It's not a cut and dried issue of being married though.
  • Tonibee
    Tonibee Posts: 19 Forumite
    The court is not the correct place to challenge this debt. However, as it is in the court you will need to go through those procedures to challenge the validity of the debt and maybe get the order suspended. That's not my area of expertise, so I would say that your wife would benefit from seeing a debt adviser. National debt line (google it, it's free) might be a start or a local specialist debt adviser.

    Benefits however, is my area of expertise. The debt was seemingly caused by overpayments of housing benefit and council tax benefit. Therefore, your wife needs to contact the local authority's benefit office and ask for copies of the benefit decisions changing the entitlment and creating the overpayment.

    If those letters were sent to her within the previous 13 months there will be a right of appeal and the benefit letters will tell you how to exercise that right. The appeal will be late so she'll have to explain why she didn't appeal sooner (didn't get notices).

    If the decisions were more than 13 months ago then they decisions may only be changed by way of a revision in the event that it can be established there is an official error. From what you say I would be relatively confident of finding such an error. If the council do revise their decision, regardless of whether or not they agree there is an error or whether or not they change the decision, then there will be a new right of appeal against the new decision. If the council refuse to revise the decision (which is not the same as revising but not changing) then there will be no right of appeal and you will need to see a specialist adviser to take up the matter, consider judicial review proceedings or pursue a complaint against the council.

    Based on what you've said, if you can get to an appeal tribunal there'll be excellent prospects because, as a previous contributor said, to be a 'couple' for benefit purposes you have to be living in the same household. There are some exceptions but they don't seem to apply. Even if they do apply, if the council were properly informed but they failed to spot the exception then the cause of the overpaid benefit is their own error. Local authority official error overpayments are not recoverable if the claimant did not contribute to the error or realise that the payments were actually being overpaid (in this situation, it would be a brave local authority to argue the claimant ought to have known).

    To recap:
    1. Find out when the decision was made creating the overpayment
    2. Appeal if within 13 months
    3. Seek a revision on official error grounds if outside that time
    4. Appeal the outcome
    5. If no right of appeal consider complaint or judicial review - and get help.

    If the error is blindingly obvious which, based on what you said, it ought ot be, then I'd be considering a complaint anyway for the distress, cost, etc of dealing with this debt in court. If it's eventually written off then make sure the credit reference record is expunged of any negative entries relating to the matter.
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