Council Tax Benefit Overpayment Debt

MrsGlitz

I have received a letter from DWP saying they are deducting £20 a fortnight from my ESA to pay an old overpayment of council tax benefit. I called them up and they say it's from the town I left four years ago.

However, I am currently paying a debt recovery agency and have been paying them for two years now, for overpayment of council tax benefit from the same town.

DWP say they haven't got the authority to just take my word for it, which is fair enough. The debt recovery agency (Rossendale) can only tell me that I am paying several overpayments of council tax and housing benefit for my old address.

All of my paperwork from Rossendale includes the bailiff fees, nothing lists the individual amounts owed without Rossendale's fees so I can't work out if it is the same debt.

I'm not really sure what to do so any help would be appreciated.

sourcrates

Hi,


Ok, its considered unfair, and not best practice, to be repaying the same debt, via two different agencies.


Rossendale's will be acting for the council concerned, and it seems the same council has a liability order to deduct money from your benefits.


You really need to speak to the council about this, Rossendale's wont be interested, find out what you owe, and from what period, then clarify who is authorised to collect it, as this does not sound right to me.

MrsGlitz

Thank you. I shall call the council tomorrow.

fatbelly

That's the right advice. It could just be that there are several liability orders and the payments are going to different ones, even though they have the same account number.

I did have a case a few years ago where the DWP were sending the payment to the council under the wrong reference and the council happily credited someone else with the payments, while sending the bailiffs to my client for non-payment of the debt! It took literally months for the council to tell us what was going on and they were very reluctant to apologise for the months of harassment they caused.

However, the deduction of £10 per week sounds wrong. It should be £3.70.