Benefit Fraud - interview under caution

cant-take-no-more

Morning all
Not sure which thread to post this onto but im sure i will get pointed in the right direction.
Basically , myself & my wife were out of work from xmas 2013 , we applied and received housing & council tax benefit.
My wife got herself a job on March 10th and i wrote to our local council on 19th March to inform them of this.

About 6/8 weeks later we received a letter from them saying that our benefit had been suspended as they had been informed that my wife was indeed working.
I wrote back explaining the letter i had sent and they say they never received the letter .
As a result of this I am on Wednesday going for an interview under caution at our local council offices !

This is a terrifying prospect , i called a solicitor who says that he will represent me but it will cost me £600 which obviously i cant afford.

My question is , does anyone have any advice about such a hearing ?
What happens if i don't go ?
Is there a way out ?

Quite frankly this is practically breaking me down , ive not even mentioned this to my wife !

Any help and advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

pmlindyloo

cant-take-no-more wrote: »

Morning all
Not sure which thread to post this onto but im sure i will get pointed in the right direction.
Basically , myself & my wife were out of work from xmas 2013 , we applied and received housing & council tax benefit.
My wife got herself a job on March 10th and i wrote to our local council on 19th March to inform them of this.

About 6/8 weeks later we received a letter from them saying that our benefit had been suspended as they had been informed that my wife was indeed working.
I wrote back explaining the letter i had sent and they say they never received the letter .
As a result of this I am on Wednesday going for an interview under caution at our local council offices !

This is a terrifying prospect , i called a solicitor who says that he will represent me but it will cost me £600 which obviously i cant afford.

My question is , does anyone have any advice about such a hearing ?
What happens if i don't go ?
Is there a way out ?

Quite frankly this is practically breaking me down , ive not even mentioned this to my wife !

Any help and advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

This is a useful guide:

http://www.advicenow.org.uk/advicenow-guides/problems-with-benefits/how-to-handle-an-interview-under-caution/

Please try not to worry too much. Yes, this is serious but will be sorted out.

You will need to take a copy of the letter that you sent them (I am presuming that you did not send it by recorded delivery?)

From what you have said this was not deliberate fraud.

They will be looking to see it was deliberate.

They look to see if you did not inform them of a change of circumstances - you sent them a letter - so that is not the case.

BUT, when you continued to receive the same HB you should have telephoned to check why you were still receiving the same money. Why didn't you do this? You need to have an answer ready for this.

In the whole scheme of things this is not a huge mistake so I suspect that you will have to explain things, apologise for your mistake, accept a fine and pay the money back.

However, I am not an expert in this field so you may want to visit CAB and ask for some advice.

tibawo

Feel for you... I think the shock of the letter hits you really hard. I was told they now investigate everything whether it is for five pounds or fifty thousand.

My local cab were useless, yours might not be but they will be able to tell you where you can get the free consultation with local law firm which are probably used to dealing with this.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

In the scale of things this isn't a 'massive' fraud and very very unlikely you will be hauled before a court and prosecuted.

They might slap yu with an administrative penalty though.

They will need to see if you qualify for any 'underlying entitlement' to Housing Benefit for the period of the overpayment using your wife's wage details to see if the overpayment can be reduced.

Is you wife paid weekly or monthly? I would write to the Housing Benefit Department again starting your letter "Further to my earlier letter of the 19th March 2014 notifying you that my wife started work on the 10th March 2014 please find enclosed X wage slips (enclose as many wage slips as your wife has received) Would you please recalculate my claim for Housing Benefit using my wife's earning details to see if we still qualify for any Housing Benefit... etc...

nonnatus

Great advice from PMLindyLoo - but I echo the thoughts! Despite sending a letter which means you knew your money was going to be reduced, you did nothing when the money kept coming same as usual. Why did you not get in touch with them to find out if they'd received your letter when that happened? THAT'S what they will want to know....

rogerblack

In addition.
Do you have any evidence that the letter was posted.
This can - ideally - be proof of posting.
But even someone witnessing you going to post the letter or hearing you say you posted it at the time may be useful.
It's probably unlikely there is any CCTV of you posting the letter if it's been so long ago - you could always check though.

The separate issue is however that if you had a belief that your money was sure to go down, and did not chase up your money not changing, that is unambiguously your fault by the regulations.

UnderPressure

NEVER post anything to HB, go to the office, hand it over and get a receipt!

All useless advice now but worth thinking about for the future. If you cannot prove you posted the letter then they are going to think, as I am sure most people would that you did not and now you are trying to use it to pass the blame onto them. Try not to worry, I know this is easy for me to say but what you have to think now is all the worry in the world is not going to make the situation better, if anything it is going to make it worst, worrying is a completely useless human emotion, you can worry about it 24/7 and it is not going to change the outcome so put it to the back of your mind for the moment, get all the information together you can, accept that posting this important update was not the best of ideas and calmly put your case across to the interviewer, if the over payment is not thousands and you come across as being genuine the I would think a slap on the wrist will be the outcome for this first time investigation, you need to make sure there will NEVER be a second time!

Best of luck with it, I cannot see the value of paying £600 for a solicitor it will not change the outcome of anything as the HB team will move forward with their already set in stone way of dealing with things. As I just said in a similar thread presumption and ignorance and not a valid legal defence.

If you really wanted to then some law firms to initial 1 hour free consultations have a ring around your local shark pool of solicitors and see what you can get out of them but on the whole I cannot see a solicitor making much if any difference to the outcome.

Keep us informed and good luck

patman99

Thing is, some Councils can take up to 8 weeks to deal with benefit changes, so you would continue to receive HB up to the point at which they got around to dealing with your letter (had they received it).

My local Council are quick to deal with benefits changes in the initial stage, but can take several weeks to actually let me know the affects the changes have had.

Just turn up for the interview and when asked, tell them that you sent in a letter on 19th May informing them of the change but heard nothing back, so assumed they were taking their time dealing with it.

Also, remember that the officer questioning you will have been trained to use the 'long gap' teqnique in which they will leave long pauses between the questions in a hope that you will feel compelled to fill them in with information. DON'T. Just give your answer then keep quiet.
That way, you reduce the risk of incriminating yourself.

missbiggles1

patman99 wrote: »

Thing is, some Councils can take up to 8 weeks to deal with benefit changes, so you would continue to receive HB up to the point at which they got around to dealing with your letter (had they received it).

My local Council are quick to deal with benefits changes in the initial stage, but can take several weeks to actually let me know the affects the changes have had.

Just turn up for the interview and when asked, tell them that you sent in a letter on 19th May informing them of the change but heard nothing back, so assumed they were taking their time dealing with it.

Also, remember that the officer questioning you will have been trained to use the 'long gap' teqnique in which they will leave long pauses between the questions in a hope that you will feel compelled to fill them in with information. DON'T. Just give your answer then keep quiet.
That way, you reduce the risk of incriminating yourself.

You can only incriminate yourself if you've done something wrong.

TELLIT01

I understand what missbiggles1 is saying, but do agree with patman99 when he says just answer the question. When feeling under pressure it is easy to say things which can be misinterpreted even when you are totally innocent.
Who amongst us hasn't felt apprehensive / nervous in a situation even when we have no reason to?
The fact that the council have no record of your letter isn't proof that it wasn't sent, or that it wasn't received for that matter. Post can, and does, go missing at all stages of the operation.
We receive large quantities of post every day and it's not unusual for people to say they posted an item only for it to finally appear where it belongs days, weeks or months later. Often it has a date stamp on which shows it has been living in the twilight zone for a long time.

dippy3103

To answer your questions..

At the interview: the interviewer will start with a scripted bit which is the caution & your other rights. You will be advised that you are not under arrest and that you have a right to legal advice. Then the interview proceeds like any other conversation- only it's taped. After the interview 2 or 3 copies of the recording will exist (depending on what equipment the council have) - one will be sealed as a master tape and kelt securely and the other a working copy- ie used for a transcription/ listened to by the investigations manager when making a decision on what to do with your case.

You can not be compelled to go. However, it is your opportunity to give your explanation of what has happened. So when the investigations manager is making their decision they can take that into account. Some councils will ask the police to arrest you if you don't attend but this is usually for bigger overpayments. Lastly if you don't go in they will not be able to consider offering you a formal caution- so it increases the likelihood of prosecution. I would add that many councils no longer offer formal cautions & deal with things by way of an administrative penalty.

At the interview take your time, ask the officer to repeat the question if you don't understand it and try not to panic. Honestly, I have been doing these interviews for years & lots of people say to me afterwards it wasn't as bad as they expected!!

You can't get out of it, but you can minimise the damage. Any idea how much the overpayment is?

As housing benefit officer has said, ask them to look at your underlying entitlement, which may reduce the overpayment.

Lastly. I always advise people to report changes by email & keep a copy (cc yourself in ) and then confirm in writing. Quicker & you have proof you reported the change.


Good luck