Claiming housing benefit and attendance allowance with more savings than declared?

Emaliz07

A bit of advice needed if anyone can help? My father recently passed away, he lived in council property for over 60 years where he has claimed HB for as long as I can remember, he also claimed AA for the past 10 years as his health got the better of him and needed extra help in and around the house. His Will has stated that the total capital is £43000, the DWP are now investigating a fraudulent claim, and state he shouldn't have claimed the benefits because of the accumulated savings. These savings I believe we're mostly gathered during the past two years where he lived a desolate life barely ever spending anything. I am completely oblivious to the situation and have no idea where we stand. I have never claimed any benefits so please omit my ignorance about the situation. Do we have to pay both benefits back? If the DWP request all of it is paid back, then 60+ years worth of HB is a hell of a lot of money?? HELP thank you:j

Mojisola

AA isn't means tested so it doesn't matter how much money he had, he was still entitled to that.

The DWP can only claim back overpayments - so it's only the years that he had more money than he should for means tested benefits that can be claimed back.

asdf1982

im pretty sure you wont be held liable.

If theres not enough in the estate to cover the fraudulent claim they wont make the next of kin pay the difference.

also he probably wasnt fraudulently claiming for 60 years, he may have just ended up with these savings in his old age like other pensioners who struggle to spend all their pensions

paulineb_2

They cant ask you to pay back what you dont have. Towards the end of my grans life, she got attendance allowance, before that she had to pay full rent because she had a small works pension from my grandpas work and some savings, when she took ill a couple of years before she died, she had under 16000 savings and so got pension credit which meant her rent got paid. And was housebound so my mum was appointed as someone on her bank account (not an appointee but could withdraw money from her account) and we made sure the money got spent, on her.

Yes its possible to be in a position where you dont pay rent and are getting a decent amount in benefits and if you dont watch out you'll end up having more savings which means you cant get more benefit and so on.

I would doubt very much if you are ever going to be asked to pay back 60 years worth of Housing Benefit (did your dad not work in his lifetime?).

I would imagine that you might be asked to pay back what was accumulated over the last couple of years when he was over the 16000 in savings which would have meant he wouldnt have been entitled to some of the benefits he got,

They'll probably investigate when his money started building up and ask that whatever he was paid is repaid from his estate, I think it very unlikely that you'll be asked to repay 60 years worth of benefits, his bank accounts will show a record of what he had in savings at different times in his life.