Overpayment of housing benefit

teddysmum

The only way that the insurance money was not your mother's is if the policy specifically named you as recipient.


My family had a case of this, where the contents of a policy were left specifically to the deceased's children, so they were paid this without the money being considered as part of the estate, which had some other beneficiaries.


Also, as has been mentioned £14000 over three years is not over the top if full HB was allowed.


£14000 over 156 weeks (exactly 3 years) is only £89.74 per week and '3 years ' is probably more than 156 weeks.

steve811

Many thanks to all for the advice. After months of back and forward to the bank and council we finally got the information the council wanted and made a formal appeal for the £8000 to be ignored. At first the council would not do this and we were prepared to go to a tribunal, but two weeks ago they gave in and accepted it. After applying the rule of diminishing capital mum had to pay just over £5000 back, a far cry from the figure they first asked for.

catz1ct

steve811 wrote: »

First all of all thank you for your compassion and understanding! My finances are a mess but we live within our means and at the time I knew if I had that £4000 it would go on things we did not need. On the other hand I had children who will want to go to university in the next couple of years and mum was holding that for me so we did not use it. Any compliance officer is welcome to look at my finances and try and find any extra money we have, I certainly cant! To those of you who say she has committed fraud, bear this in mind. When she applied for benefits after my fathers death in 2013 she was helped by Age Concern and their people, who were fully aware what insurances were coming and being paid out. Their attitude was that we did not have to declare it as it was not hers. We are talking about a 77 year old widow of a man who worked all his life and religiously all his and her bills, not a scrounging low life who deliberately cons the system.

Age concern are not benefit assessment staff and should not be giving out advice like that! :mad:

Mersey_2

steve811 wrote: »

She has now received a letter from the council which claims she owes just over £14000 in overpayments, and that if she wants to re-apply for benefits she must in future notify them of any large withdrawal from any of the accounts and the reasons!


There is no explanation of how the amount has been calculated and no explanation of how they have arrived at this figure.

I have already made a formal complaint about the bullying and arrogant employee who accused her of having four or five bank accounts and of money laundering ( his exact words) and fraud.

The second sentence is a regular problem with Councils and I'm sure months of time and effort could be saved on both sides if they just provided an explanation for figures they arrive at.


I have just helped a claimant re LHA & CTS and it has taken the Local Authority some 10 months just to provide details as to how they arrived at the net income figure they used in order to calculate HB & CTS.


They seem to routinely disregard that they are under a duty to respond with a month as well as claimants.


OP - Make sure you pursue the complaint re the accusation of money laundering and fraud, as unless he said suspected it's both defamatory and maladministration, as well as being discourteous to an elderly widow.

steve811

The original complaint of "fraud and money laundering" was taken further and a staff member received a reprimand and "retraining".

steve811

oh, and by the way the councils explanation of how they arrived at the revised figure came to a massive 49 pages, most of which my mother could not understand!