DWP chasing old debt

Ruthydoo

In 2010 I declared myself bankrupt, included in the bankruptcy was an amount of £1500 owed to the DWP. This amount was due to me being on JSA for a while after loosing my job. In this time every month the job centre messed my payments up and I got no money which resulted in me needing to claim for a crisis loan resulting in the £1500 debt.
Anyway, 12 months after my bankruptcy ended I had a letter off the DWP saying I owed this money so I phined them up to explain about my bankruptcy, I was then told after much arguing that I still owed £70 for a crisis loan that was taken out after my bankruptcy (fair enough) I asked them to send me out a payment slip with a letter to state that this was all I owed and I would pay the outstanding amount. Didn't recieve anything.
About another year later I get another letter again saying I owe £1500 for the outstanding amount. So again I phoned them up and told them about my bankruptcy, after arguing the fact that I had indeed been made bankrupt because my name was no longer on the bankruptcy register, i was told that all I owed now was 78p because I had been paying money out of my JSA which had nearly cleared the debt, so again I asked for a letter stating this, and again didn't get one.
Now this week I have had another letter saying that I still owe this money of £1500 and if I don't pay or arrange a payment plan they will take it further. My OR agreed the amount was included in the bankruptcy last time I got the letter.
What can be done about this as I thought this debt had been cleared, are they allowed to keep chasing me for this?

fed_up_and_stressed

Dwp debts are not statute barred but are covered in bankruptcy proceedings (bar fraudulent cases)

Relevant case law is -

Regina (Balding) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Liability to repay overpaid social security benefit occurring prior to a bankruptcy was a bankruptcy debt. Discharge from bankruptcy released the debtor from liability for recovery of the overpaid benefit.
The Queen’s Bench Divisional Court (Lord Justice Latham and Mr Justice Davis) so held on April 3, 2007 on the claim of Mr John Balding for judicial review of the decision of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that an overpayment of income support, found to be recoverable before he was declared bankrupt, remained to be paid by deduction from his ongoing entitlement to social security benefits after he had been discharged from bankruptcy.

MR JUSTICE DAVIS said that the claimant’s liability to repay benefit arose under section 71(1) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. As such, he was liable to pay money under an enactment for the purposes of section 382(4) of the Insolvency Act 1986 and the liability was therefore a bankruptcy debt.

Under section 281 of the 1986 Act, upon discharge, a bankrupt was released from all the bankruptcy debts. The claimant had therefore been released from liability to repay the overpaid benefit upon being discharged from his bankruptcy.


However the crux here for the OP as to whether this is relevant to them is to whether the debt had been found to by recoverable at the date of the bankruptcy.

Ruthydoo

Thanks for your reply, so basically they shouldn't be chasing me for this debt or did I read that wrong

fed_up_and_stressed

No they should not be chasing you if the end date of the overpayment is pre bankruptcy ive just done more digging for you.

They may try to refer to the Steele v Birmingham council case where the debt was not provable at the time of the bankruptcy and hence not covered in the same way ..however guidance issued after Nortel case (2013) rescinded Steele and as such guidance was issued (although this refers to hb ) it applies equally to all dwp debt.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/251957/g10-2013.pdf