HB/CTB Appeals

Kimberley

I asked for a review of my HB/CTB after i was told they overpayed me more then £1000. The mistake was their error. Well i got a letter back saying the review was unsuccessful and they wrote

"We have checked the records held by this office and we can confirm that you did incude your Child Maintenance payments on your application form completed on 1 May 2006. However, it was not included as income when your claim was reassessed on 1 June 2006.

A decision has been made that although the overpayment was caused by local authority error, you would have been aware that you were being overpaid when you received the letter on 1 June 2006 showing details of your entitlement, and this letter did not include details of your child maintenance"

Now, i know full well that i gave all my income evidence to them in May 2006 and when they assessed this in June 2006. The income was also on my bank statements.

They are saying that i was aware that i was overpayed, are they trying to say i committed fraud???:eek:

Since i claimed i have always taken in proof of circumstances when needed and i get treated like this :rolleyes:

Can anyone suggest where i should go from here please

real1314

No, they are not saying that you committed fraud. What they are saying is (I think...) that your benefit was assessed correctly in May, however in June they re-assessed your benefit and made an error, failing to take your child maintenance into account as income. They are saying that you should have been aware of the error, presumably because your HB would have increased for no apparent reason.
This is based on the same law that would mean that if you went to a bank and withdrew £100, but the cashier mistakenly gave you £1000, they would be able to recover the money from you, as long as they could show that 1. you received it, and 2. that you should have been aware that you had received it.

the only way to avoid repaying money in this situation is to use "estoppel":-

"Estoppel
A doctrine of law that stops one from later denying facts which that person once acknowledged were true and others accepted on Good Faith.
Example: Abel signs a certificate acknowledging that he owes $10,000 on a Mortgage as of a certain date(or the HB Office says you are entitled to x amount on 01/06/06). Later he contends that he owed only $5,000 (they now say that the assessment on 01/06/06 was incorrect). Abel is prevented from asserting this new contention under estoppel."

In your situation you would have to contend that you had no reason to belive that your HB was incorrect (might be difficult to maintain this depending on the circumstances), and that yuo relied fully on the Local Authroity to correctly asses your HB. You would also have to show that you had spent the extra money received and that your financial position has changed based on the receipt of this money.

hth

nottslass_2

Hi Kimberley,

I had a similar thing happen to me a few years ago, but managed to successfully appeal, I will try to help further,but need to know why you didn't realise that your maintenence payments weren't include in your award notice /letter .

Kimberley

nottslass wrote: »

Hi Kimberley,

I had a similar thing happen to me a few years ago, but managed to successfully appeal, I will try to help further,but need to know why you didn't realise that your maintenence payments weren't include in your award notice /letter .

Thanks, well when i first made a new claim when i started part time work, i received a 4 week HB/CTB run on which bought me up to 1 may 2006, I then filled out a new claim form after the run on had finished and gave every document and proof of income that was asked for and this included my child maintenance. I also had a visit at my own home and the officer wrote all my proof of income down, this again included my child maintenance. I assumed that this was it and from then on i only had to inform them about any changes of circumstances that i have in the future.

I always took up any increase of Tax credits/rent increases that i had and i also took my wage slip up there when i had a pay rise.

I've never left anything out and when i got my award notice letter in June, i assumed that they had my child maintenance down already from May. The maintenance also shows up on my bank statements that the benefit office have.

I wasn't to know i was overpayed and trusted that the benefit pffice had calculated my claim correctly. If i had known, i would have questioned it. Surely it's their mistake if they missed it off my award notice?

Anthillmob

what theyre saying is that whenever your claim s assessed for any reason notification letters are sent to you that tell you what income and capital they are using in the assessment and therefore you would have known they werent taking your maintenance into account. of which you have a duty to inform them.

however you can ask for a reconsiderationand then an appeal if the recon is turned down. sometimes the debt will be written off as its the LA error but sometimes it isnt. it really all depends who looks at your case and the decision they make.

good luck.

Kimberley

Thanks Ant, i'll write up an appeal letter then. I guess it's my fault for not reading the award letter word for word, but because i had enclosed my child maintenance in May i just assumed it was in the assessment

Zingara

Argue that the letters they sent out are so longwinded and confusing you didn't understand them and assumed they were correct! I work for a Housing Association and some of the ones we see we don't understand!

Karen

nottslass_2

HI KIMBERLY,

have a look on https://www.rightsnet .org if you click on the tool kitlink you should be able to find the current legislation in regard to recovery of housing benefit overpayment's.

I would appeal on the grounds that the over payment occurred because of an "official error" with repeated maladministration of your housing benefit claim - state that,when you originally submitted your claim, not only did you supply all the relevant evidence required, including that of your maintenance payments , remind them that you also received a home verification visit, when again ,you supplied all the relevant documentation for them to correctly asses your claim ( you could also add that they have also reassessed your claim due to wage increases and again failed to asses it correctly,despite the fact that they have copies/proof of all your income)

I would state that because your benefit claim had obviously been amened / verified on several occasions you had no reason to believe that it was incorrect and feel that it is unreasonable for the benefits office to have expected you to notice that an error had occurred (especially when they hadn't) !

Hope this helps,let us know how you get on & good luck

Kimberley

nottslass wrote: »

HI KIMBERLY,

have a look on https://www.rightsnet .org if you click on the tool kitlink you should be able to find the current legislation in regard to recovery of housing benefit overpayment's.

I would appeal on the grounds that the over payment occurred because of an "official error" with repeated maladministration of your housing benefit claim - state that,when you originally submitted your claim, not only did you supply all the relevant evidence required, including that of your maintenance payments , remind them that you also received a home verification visit, when again ,you supplied all the relevant documentation for them to correctly asses your claim ( you could also add that they have also reassessed your claim due to wage increases and again failed to asses it correctly,despite the fact that they have copies/proof of all your income)

I would state that because your benefit claim had obviously been amened / verified on several occasions you had no reason to believe that it was incorrect and feel that it is unreasonable for the benefits office to have expected you to notice that an error had occurred (especially when they hadn't) !

Hope this helps,let us know how you get on & good luck

Thank you so much everyone especially you Nottslass. I'll bump this thread up once i hear the result of my appeal :beer:

Kimberley

Zingara wrote: »

Argue that the letters they sent out are so longwinded and confusing you didn't understand them and assumed they were correct! I work for a Housing Association and some of the ones we see we don't understand!

Karen

Thank you :beer:

Fran

Citizens Advice should be able to help with your appeal too and they will have access to the relevant info, if not they can consult their specialists. They will also be able to research it if they have time (assuming your local one has a Benefits specialist).