housing benift appeal

sliddon_2

hi in 2012 i was put on unpaid esa wag due to my wife working so are income went down alot from when i was on IB
the council also worked out a new total weekly applicable so what we need to live on this is the same as both being on jsa but we had £28 extra because of my esa i called the council and asked them to explain it and was told as i had lost £108 a week from esa being £0 now they increased the applicable amount so my wife will keep £28 more of her wages to make up the income a bit

fast forward 5 days before xmas 2013 i have always sent payslips to my council and made sure they had all correct details every 5 weeks but this day i got a "folder" in the post with a repeat copy of all housing and council tax benifts calculated again since 2012 this time the esa £28 appicable amount has been removed so £28 less and they now want it all back as well as being £28 worse off in the future per week

housing is taking it back per week from are rent leaving us in a mess and council tax wanted £400 in 2 weeks so i had to take out a loan to pay this in time

nobody could tell me why they changed are applicable amount after 18moths i am waiting for dwp to call me back monday to make sure it isnt a mistake but even if it is correct then i still see it as there official error as i have done all i can to provide correct info

so should i appeal?

Housing_Benefit_Officer

1) You are not a Housing Benefit expert, you must have faith, when your change of circumstances was declared, that the Benefit Assessors, who are the experts in processing benefit claims, would get things right.

2) The benefit notifications are confusing to the layman and you should not be held responsible that your household applicable amount was calculated incorrectly. You must assume the letters were right using the income and circumstances you declared.

3) You consider this overpayment of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit to be an administrative Local Authority error that you would not have reasonably know to have been occuring therefore you would like to ask for a reconsideration of both HB and CTB overpayments that the overpayment should not be recovered from you and written off as a Local Authority error. You should not be penalized for someone elses mistake.

4) While you appeal is being dealt with you want the recovery of the Housing Benefit overpayment suspended and the recovery of any Council Tax arrears created as a result of this error suspended.

5) Separately - if you are in financial hardship make a claim for Discretionary Housing Payments.

6) If they refuse your appeal - appeal again asking to go to Tribunal.

PS You only have 1 month to appeal so if your appeal is out of time you have to give reasons for your late appeal and they have to consider whether to accept it or not as late and then they will look at the reasons for your appeal.

sliddon_2

thanks that was a great help
the other thing i want to point out is i see this as a personal attack against us

my wifes wages are not a fixed weekly amount she has 3 higher weekly amounts then 2 out of five so i would give the council the 5 payslips in a row to work out the correct weekly amount add up and devide by five simple but i found out that the council had a wrong higher income then what her wages are over the 5 weeks
after asking them how it was calc i found they had used 8 payslips basiclay hanging onto 3 high payslips from the month before to add onto the next 3 high and 2 low making her income seem higher

once i pointed this out they fixed it then payed a underpayment to us for the "mistake" but then the next month this happens almost like they are saying you mess with how we do things we will hit you back...

rogerblack

sliddon wrote: »

the other thing i want to point out is i see this as a personal attack against us

Speaking in general.
Characterising the actions of officials as personal attacks - even if they are - is rarely, if ever helpful.

Consider your desired result.
If it is disciplinary action against one individual - then trying to prove that it's a personal attack is reasonable.

If you are trying to get your rightful entitlement - or trying to get them to agree to something that is a reasonable, but alternative agreement, it isn't, and claiming this will simply tend to get people to back up into their corner, and fight that they were right to make the decision in the first place.

tinkledom

Housing_Benefit_Officer wrote: »

1) You are not a Housing Benefit expert, you must have faith, when your change of circumstances was declared, that the Benefit Assessors, who are the experts in processing benefit claims, would get things right.

The benefit notifications are confusing to the layman and you should not be held responsible that your household applicable amount was calculated incorrectly. You must assume the letters were right using the income and circumstances you declared.
.

Isn't it the case that the claimant is responsible for checking that the calculations are correct and notifying the council of the mistake.


I have always done that with my local authority and have found many mistakes. I always ask the council to let me have a breakdown every year of the income that have used together with a breakdown of their calculations. I have always had to repay any debt arising from the council's mistakes.


At the moment I have an appeal going to a Tribunal over a £2800 debt which is entirely down to the council going back to 2005. They made a mistake and I failed to spot it, but that hasn't stopped the council from demanding the money from me saying that it was my responsibility to check their calculations.


This is no different to HMRC who always place the emphasis on the claimant for checking purposes.

sliddon_2

tinkledom wrote: »

Isn't it the case that the claimant is responsible for checking that the calculations are correct and notifying the council of the mistake.

the thing is we did do the calculations every month to check the amount of any access income was correct to what they said
we used the amounts they said we are allowed before it is classed as access income to make sure its correct

now they have said the amount they told us was wrong by £28 so the amount they said we use to do the calculations all this time to check was wrong since 2012

i guess its like saying a child thats told 2+2=5 by the school is wrong when the school has told him its correct for 2 years

princessdon

So it's the difference on which weeks they are using for the calculations. As a weekly, 4 weekly, 5 weekly or 8 weekly give different results?

cattermole

I really don't think it is "personal" it's just not a straight forward situation that is the reason.

Having taken my Local Authority all the way to the Court of Appeal on a Housing Benefit matter I never found they treated me unfairly what so ever. They actually were very supportive.

If you are having ongoing problems I suggest you ask to meet with a Manager, sit down with them and agree a way forward that everyone is clear on for the future on exactly how your wife's payslips will be dealt with. Making a complaint can be turned into a positive outcome.

cattermole

tinkledom wrote: »

Isn't it the case that the claimant is responsible for checking that the calculations are correct and notifying the council of the mistake.


I have always done that with my local authority and have found many mistakes. I always ask the council to let me have a breakdown every year of the income that have used together with a breakdown of their calculations. I have always had to repay any debt arising from the council's mistakes.


At the moment I have an appeal going to a Tribunal over a £2800 debt which is entirely down to the council going back to 2005. They made a mistake and I failed to spot it, but that hasn't stopped the council from demanding the money from me saying that it was my responsibility to check their calculations.


This is no different to HMRC who always place the emphasis on the claimant for checking purposes.

I thought Appeals to the Tribunal had to be on a point of law?!

Housing_Benefit_Officer

Is the overpayment caused by the recalculation of the applicable amount?

sliddon_2

you know what i've already done this lol

when my wife first started work we handed in the payslips weekly but due to them never being the same amounts the hb was crazy one week we owed them the next they owed us etc council tax would send a demand then say we owe nothing or be in credit

i had a meeting with the council and was told how they go by five payslips to work out weekly wage so i said i would hand them in fives to avoid all this from now on this helped alot but didnt stop them making mistakes as in them losing payslips and going by eight instead of five a few times but as they send me a breakdown every month and i know how to work it out the same way as they do i was able to spot the mistakes and correct it out of 12months i would spot mistakes in 4 of them