appealing a benefit overpayment decision

baza52

TheNickster wrote: »

Can you claim housing benefit if living with parents?

No, HB is only for social housing tenants.
It would be LHA but I very much doubt they were claiming it for living with parents.

Ames

It would be very difficult - bordering on impossible - to prove that it was a commercial tenancy rather than contrived. I don't know if there's an actual rule about it.

xylophone

The OP lives with his parents together with his wife and child.

About two years ago his MS became more severe, so that making adaptations to his parents' house to create a downstairs loo and shower room was desirable.

The OP and his wife were on a low income at that stage as neither could work, the one because of his condition, the other because of caring responsibilities.

The OP states that he (and his wife?) had little capital - perhaps enough to pay an annual amount to his parents to cover rent and a share of the bills.

Perhaps they were entitled to IS at that point?

The OP/his wife saved what income they had over the next eighteen months to pay for the adaptations and it is this growth in capital that has created the problem?

ExTeacher

Thanks for the input guys.

No I havent claimed housing benefit or any benefit other than PIP (my wife gets carers allowance).

I think I'll show the savings account and then they'll be able to see there is no more savings.

ExTeacher

I believe I was entitled to claim IS when I started the claim. It was only by saving up to pay to build a new ground floor bathroom that I've fallen foul.

I know ignorance is not an excuse. I am very sorry. I just want this whole affair to be over with. I'm worried how I'm going to pay the builders and also pay back DWP. 11k overpayment is steep

Ames

If you were entitled then you can appeal. It would be helpful if you could answer the questions I asked earlier in the thread so people can advise.

FBaby

How much is this going to cost? I think you are about to face quite a battle. The first one is the fact that you haven't declared when your savings went over the threshold because I believe that it is made very clear that you should do regardless of the intention of the savings, and you didn't. As you say, pledging ignorance won't make it ok.

Your second issue is that you are saying that the sole use of this saving is to build an extension for a bathroom. That sounds very dubious. I've never heard of a bathroom costing this much and in your case, this is investing in capital that doesn't belong to you but your parents. Why aren't your parents at least contributing to the cost, after all, it will add value to THEIR house. Are you intending to live there indefinitely? Is it only a bathroom, or a whole extension for you to live there you are building?

Practically, you might have a chance for this over-payment to be reduced to when your savings went over £16K rather than from the start of claiming.

ceecee1

I am struggling to understand how you have managed to save such an amount when you say that you had no savings when you first claimed benefit in 2014.

I can see that you have possibly received that amount in benefit but have you had absolutely no outgoings at all in that time.

As everyone else has said - it is the joint savings of yourself and your wife which are taken into account. If over £6k than a reduction in benefit is received, if over £16k then you are not entitled to anything at all.

Placitasgirl

I'm also struggling to see how this amount of savings could have been accumulated since 2014. The idea of benefits is not to allow you sufficient surplus monies to be able to save - and most definitely not to the extent mentioned. If you are in a position to save the benefits you receive I'm not sure how you could be entitled to them in the first place.

The moment the couple's JOINT capital (and it's capital, not savings), exceeded £6k they would have been subject to a reduction of £1 per week per £250 of capital. A declaration should have been made at this point. Once the JOINT capital reaches £16 there is not entitlement to income based benefit and this would stop.

From the information the OP has provided I believe that there has been an overpayment. You can't claim benefits and squirrel them away and then decide that you don't have to declare this as capital because you intend to use it once a year to pay "rent" or to take a holiday. I can't see how this could be looked at any other way.

I'm sure this situation has arisen through a misunderstanding or ignorance of the benefit rules, but as unfortunate as that is if an overpayment has been made it must be repaid.

TheNickster

Placitasgirl wrote: »

I'm also struggling to see how this amount of savings could have been accumulated since 2014. The idea of benefits is not to allow you sufficient surplus monies to be able to save - and most definitely not to the extent mentioned. If you are in a position to save the benefits you receive I'm not sure how you could be entitled to them in the first place.

The moment the couple's JOINT capital (and it's capital, not savings), exceeded £6k they would have been subject to a reduction of £1 per week per £250 of capital. A declaration should have been made at this point. Once the JOINT capital reaches £16 there is not entitlement to income based benefit and this would stop.

From the information the OP has provided I believe that there has been an overpayment. You can't claim benefits and squirrel them away and then decide that you don't have to declare this as capital because you intend to use it once a year to pay "rent" or to take a holiday. I can't see how this could be looked at any other way.

I'm sure this situation has arisen through a misunderstanding or ignorance of the benefit rules, but as unfortunate as that is if an overpayment has been made it must be repaid.

If he claims PIP and if he had the higher rate care and or mobility components it is possible and using it to make his home MS friendly would be a legitimate use of it (not that there is any restriction on what PIP can be used for - in fact it asked on the DLA form whether the claimant wanted it paid into the NS investment account!

I am not clear whether this conversion of the garage has been started, completed or at a stage in between.

A good strategy would be to pay the builder in stages as the work progresses.

Judging by the cost (abt 29k) of a conversion of a garage into a 2 storey extension that I know of, 14K does not appear to me excessive - although I expect someone with one leg will popup and say they did their's on their own in 6 weeks while holding down a full time job for £900 - but then I'm just getting a bit cynical about social media.