Backdated claim query???

Mics_chick

I don't think my situation with Tax Credit is an everyday occurrence so I'll try to explain it as clearly and concisely as I can (not know for this generally!! )

In December 2005 I should have returned to work after a year off on maternity leave after my 2nd child. I was diagnosed with PND just 2 weeks after he was born in January 2005 and as I was the main breadwinner the plan was always for me to return to work but I was unable to do this because of bad I still felt with the PND.

At the same time a couple of different things were going on with Tax Credits:
1) They were reclaiming an overpayment of £2100+ after my appeal was rejected with no further discussion allowed.
2) We had sent back the Annual Declaration but they requested the same info again to do with my OH's income. We returned this form but they were still asking for it. I didn't feel well enough to deal with it so in January 2006 they sent a request to repay £3800+ we had received for the previous year (2004/05).

At the time I was really struggling to cope with the fact that I wasn't well enough to return to work and the guilt and worry made it worse, especially the fear of a relapse to how I felt just after my son was born. So I just ignored the Tax Credit situation and kept telling myself I would deal with it tomorrow or next month until I finally felt able to in March this year :eek: During this time I didn't hear anything else from the Tax Credit office apart form the Annual Declaration forms. I have been off-sick from work all that time too.

They have restarted my Tax Credits and backdated it until mid-January 2007 which gave me a lump sum to pay off some of my overdraft. But I wondered if they are likely to pay me from April - December 2006 because I didn't receive any tax credits for that period. I'm assuming this is because I didn't return the Annual Declaration last year. However I still felt too unwell to deal with it and I wondered if they would accept this as a valid reason for not filling it in? Has anyone done this or heard of a situation like this? I have already sent them a letter but that was a few weeks ago now so I don't know what to think about it or what to do next?

Also I sent them a letter about the 2 seperate demands for repaying the overpayments of £2100+ and £3800+ and I wondered how long I should leave it before contacting them again if I haven't heard anything. I sent the letter about 3 weeks ago.

Any help anyone could give me with this would be most gratefully received
Cheers MC

Editted to add: Apologies for this mega-post but as I said before I'm not known for being succinct

Violetta_2

Hi Mics_chick I don't know how likely it is to be backdated, but you have nothing to loose I'd give the helpline a ring and ask if you can appeal for your claim to be backdated & explain why you hadn't done before. hth