Recently deceased - just found out DWP overpaid for 10 years

beecher2

My mum also had been overpaid by the DWP and I think it took about a 14 months to finalise. I'd flagged up that there would probably be an issue on day 1 with the solicitor and gave them all the relevant bank statements immediately so things progressed about as quickly as they could've - DWP seemed to take forever. Everything else was sorted out within 6 months so it was stressful having it drag on for so long and I know what you mean about the solicitor letters being upsetting. Ours always seemed to appear on anniversaries which didn't help. In the end the DWP took a bit less than I expected - some of it was written off and the calculation never really made any sense to me at all. I was just relieved to have it over with.

good luck, nothing much you can do apart from wait though

stevemLS

There are various threads detailing the difficulties that people have had with estates and DWP, they seem to be notoriously slow in sorting stuff out so 10 months is nothing exceptional, sadly.

TELLIT01

If there has been an overpayment DWP will always 'request' repayment, even if the overpayment is due entirely to official error i.e. DWP error. They can only demand payment if the person who received the payment didn't provide all the necessary information in a timely manner.
Your solicitor should certainly be asking questions of DWP as to how the overpayment arose in the first place.

Weary_soul

As far as overpayments go look into the diminishing capital calculation rule which the DWP and local councils must apply when calculating any overpayment due to excess funds.

*Taken from CAB*

Your diminishing bit is the amount by which the deceased's capital would have decreased if the overpaid benefit had not been paid. That in effect means only the amount of the benefit in question (you will do the same with HB and CTB). Work it out for 13 weeks, take it way from the actual capital at that date.

Calcualte overpayment for next 13 weeks. Now add that to the amount you took off for the previous quarter, and subtract the total from the actual capital at that date.

Repeat as necessary for every 13 week period. In each period you are taking the whole of the total you have arrived at so far from the level of actual capital at the eend of the 13 week period to arrive at a form of notional capital.

Once that notional figure gets below the upper capital limit, the person might have been entiteld to benefit. Work out the entitelment using actual income and tariff income from the notional capital (yes, it gets very complex).

Continue until your notional capital reach the lower capital limit, at which there is no longer any overpayment for capital reasons at all.

Or you could ask DWP for a diminishing capital calcualtion because they do have the computer to do it and it produces a nice and (with effort) pretty understandable printout as long as they tell you what assumptions they have made.

Mojisola

*Scottish*Lass* wrote: »

The DWP are saying that they've overpaid pension amount by £100 a week since 2005 to a week or 2 after she died. The overpayment just seems to be an 'oversight' on their behalf!

Weary_soul wrote: »

As far as overpayments go look into the diminishing capital calculation rule which the DWP and local councils must apply when calculating any overpayment due to excess funds.

As it's a mistake in the pension calculation, any capital held by the OP's partner's Mum won't matter - the state pension isn't means tested.

tiger_eyes

*Scottish*Lass* wrote: »

Since her death it has been discovered that the DWP over paid her by £100 PER WEEK since 2005, totalling approx £85,000.

Sums don't add up here. £100 a week for ten years (give or take) would be around £52,000. Either she's been overpaid by substantially more, or substantially longer, or there are overpayments from other sources, or the DWP are confused.

xylophone

OP, do you have your mother's first state pension calculation from 2005?

See post 18 here- https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/60319901#Comment_60319901

Every tax year after that she will have received a statement showing the breakdown of the state pension etc received

What are the amounts shown?

*Scottish*Lass*

xylophone wrote: »

OP, do you have your mother's first state pension calculation from 2005?

See post 18 here- https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/60319901#Comment_60319901

Every tax year after that she will have received a statement showing the breakdown of the state pension etc received

What are the amounts shown?

No, every bit of paperwork that they (her children) could find is with the solicitor to try and word it out so I don't have anything to check just now.

Re the £52,000 I hadn't done the sums (bad for a book-keeper haha) but there must be other stuff as well then as £85k is the figure being quoted. Unfortunately we're getting the info 2nd hand, my other half's sister is dealing with it through the solicitor as the eldest child (best off this way as there is a serious rift between 1 of the sister and pretty much the whole rest of the family ) so either there's more the DWP are claiming or she's not given the correct figure?

As I said, I was more looking to see if others have been in the same
Position and as someone's said above (sorry, on my phone so can't check your name just now!) 10 months doesn't seem to be that extraordinary in these cases

Thanks for all the advice so far guys!

xylophone

There have certainly been cases where, for example, a claimant has not declared capital or income and death ( presumably via application for probate) has revealed the discrepancy.

There was one case where the estate had been distributed and the DWP was chasing the executor.

I am wondering whether somehow or the other, her NI record was confused with that of another person and she was awarded SERPS or S2P that she hadn't earned.

MissMoneypenny

The solicitor may not know as much as some of these people on here and the estate might be paying him/her to find all this out. Can you get the older sister to post on here with the details the posters are asking for, to give the children the correct information?