money taken from income support

gordonpringle

Hi I was declared bankrupt in June of this year, I have payments taken from income support for unpaid council tax and an overpayment of housing benefit (both for periods well before my br) does anyone know if I can have these deductions stopped?

Thanks in advance

PippaGirl_2

depends on why the overpayments were accrued. If the debt was accrued because of fraud or a failure to notify the authorities of a change of circumstances then the debt is still owed even after BR.

gordonpringle

Thanks theres a bit of a debate about the housing ben but the council tax relates to a simple bill that wasn't paid so where do you think i stand there ?

debt_doctor

Hi,

For your HB O/P to be fraudulent, at least one of the following 3 things must have happened;

1) you must have admitted fraud under caution
or
2) paid an administrative penalty under the 1992 social security administration act
or
3) have been successfully prosecuted for fraud.

If none of the above happened then the o/p is not fraudulent and so included in your BR.

You can tackle this in two ways - ask the OR to contact the council to tell them to stop collecting both of the payments and to return surplus monies to you

or

write a formal complaint to your local job centre plus office - if no joy after 14 days complain to the area manager (your local office must give you this address) and if still not resolved complain to the Independent Case Examiner.

It's your money, you should make every effort to get it back.

DD

gordonpringle

Many thanks for that DD thats very interesting, I'll get working on it on Monday. Its not a fortune but still money is tight and every little helps!

Thank you again :j

debt_doctor

Good for you.

If you get any problems then please post back on here.

I have had to do this for clients quite often.

Good luck.

DD

gordonpringle

Hi again, I've just had a call from dwp collections who are very insistent that I must keep up these payments! any ideas how I should proceed ?

fermi

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/u6-2011.pdf

gordonpringle

Thanks for that just copied it to council and dwp/jcp lets see what comes next. Its a joke theres a guy on telly today hiding in spain owes em £150k and they're doing nothing yet I can't get them to stop collecting money when they should have !!

fermi

The are a joke.

Hopefully debt doctor will comment as well, but I think he mostly already said what you have to do in one of the posts above. You just have to keep beating these people around the head with the correct info into it finally sinks in with someone.

debt_doctor

Hi,

As Fermi mentioned, I suggest you use the formal procedure that I outlined (include a copy of the link Fermi provided) as it is very difficult to get anywhere with the DWP unless you make them formally accountable.

DD