Housing benefit harrasment

dazzadub

ill try keep simple


i claimed dla from october 2010-sept 2012 and received award notice. they notified council of this for my housing benefit claim

in sept 2012 i informed council in writing my dla had come to an end and i wouldnt be reclaiming this.

in nov 2012 i got letter stating i had commited fraud and they wanted to interview me.

so i spoke to the investigator, who informed me this was because i had not notified the council on sept 2011 my dla claim ended, and i have been charged an overpayment of houing and council tax benefit.

i contacted dla who said sorry, they informed council of the wrong dates and was a typo on the letters etc

so went to interview with this info in hand, the investigator asked for bank statements for the year, wage slips for partner, and dla award letter

he said " clearly someone has got something wrong here" "we need to clear the over payments, so he took all are info and fincail info and copied and sent to office.

2 weeks later got letter saying they had looked at it and have now wiped the years worth of overpayments etc

they then asked for current payslip.

this was sent in.

week later they wrote again saying they had recveived and issued a new award of benefit, and there was over payment from sept 2012.

ok so far it was ok.

this is where they started.

every week id get another letter stating the amount of benefit had changed and need to pay more towards the rent. this went on all over xmas and early into jan 2013.

i called council benefits team on 17th jan 2013 to enquire about how i was going to afrod my council tax bill, she checked all my benefits and we arranged something.

on the 18th jan 2013, i got another letter requesting all my partners wage slips from april 2012 and my claim had now been stopped, and if i dont pass these over i will be charged from april 2012 to present for over payment.

they also say the dla benefit stopped on the 11.1.13 and thats why there wrtitng.

they also say there maybe other income coming into the house we need to tell them about, ( we dont )


so why is it they have every detail of every penny we have and they still hassle us, we are currently earnign in total per month £1100 thats it, every penny.

but request we pay £87 a week rent and £110 per month council tax.

we cant afford this along with are other bills such as car, gas, elec etc we just cant, just trhe rent and the car is over half are income gone, before we even pay anything else.

i spoke to council abaout this, they say are income is thought to be much higher then it is, and they want to check this, they even requesting pay details from partners work.

i have the feeling they hated the fact i challenged the fraud case against us, and brought in a lawyer to speak to them.

and now they after us to try anything they can to screw us over.


any thoughts

Horseunderwater

Is the £1100 per month gross or net pay? And is that between both of you or just your partner? Are you under 25 or over 25 years old. These things can make a difference. DLA is not taken into account as income when you claim Council tax / housing benefit. If your income was under £84.95 (under 18's) or under £111.45 (over 18's) and a couple, then you would qualify for HB & CTB - so the question is while you claimed DLA was your income below those levels? this is for the year 2012/13. For 2011/12 = £80.75 & £105.95 and for 2010/11 it was £78.30 & £102.75 per week income to live on. If it was then you should be able to prove that by bank statements and hopefully your partners P60's where he/she was earning - sorry I have no idea of your full details. You need to sit down and work it all out. Once you have the income worked out, you can go back to council and get it corrected - assuming it needs correcting. You do not mention any other benefits, but I assume you claimed something else?

dazzadub

im 31 my partner is 22

i dont work, all we have is tax credit of 100 per week, and 82 a month child benefit,

my partner earns 11781 per year before tax and national insurance.

her net pay is around 957 per month.


i hope this helps. ive tried all these different benefit calculators, some same we entitlted to some hosuing benefit and some say not.

but some say im enetilted to claim jsa contribution based

dazzadub

also the 11781 was started in august 2012, and before then her salary was 9871

princessdon

Your TC should be more than that with WTC and CTC, are you paying an overpayment?

dazzadub

tax credit is like 100.38 no overpayment.

dazzadub

dazzadub wrote: »

tax credit is like 100.38 no overpayment.

thats child and working combined

princessdon

yes I have seen from your other thread it's because you don't get the 30 hour element that I assumed from the salary was there.

dazzadub

she works aroun26-29 hours per week. im sure over the year with over time etc she does more then 30 per week.

tax credit calculator say we only entitled to 1037. is that for the remaing part of tax year or for the whole year. as are current tax credit award is like 5k a year

Horseunderwater

So your partner works at least 24 hours per week and is on a wage of £11,781 gross? This should mean that you get full Child tax credit and some work tax credit along with Child benefit of £20.30 weekly (£1055.6 yearly) - there is an income rise disregard of £10k this tax year so they will not be concerned about her pay rise. (Tax credits).
Her weekly net income should be £202.75 approx based on her new wage after deducting NI and Tax. So your weekly income should be made up as follows: £202.75 wage £20.30 CBen £107.00 CTC/WTC = 303.05 approx per week - obviously the council remove the CB from the equation for their purposes - so yes you more than likely have been overpaid HB and CTB. Basically you need to drastically cut your expenditure down if you cannot live on that per week. If you are disabled - you should claim the DLA and ESA as this will up your income.