Overpayment of Housing Benifits.

DashDotCom

Good evening folks,

After my last visit to the forums I decided I would not enter into a DMP but I would be more proactive in sorting my debts.

I've emailed an ex employer who overpaid me in wages when I handed my notice in (genuine mistake). I have emailed them to let them know of my financial difficulties and that I could only offer a token payment of £1 a month. They have accepted and I now have a standing order.

I made the same offer to the housing benifit people for an over payment of benifits from 2012. They have rejected the offer and request that I fill out a Means Enquiry form for them to assess my situation. As this is the government I assume I need to fill out the form and have them take every penny i have? (As if I don't pay enough taxes already...). Or am I able to stick to my guns and offer the £1?

Thanks for any help.

determined_new_ms

in my experience (and I work with people to prevent homelessness) LA are governed by different laws and are a law unto themselves. They are asking for overpayment rates of £12 a week from people on jsa - that is a huge % of their income maybe a 6th or 5th. Best advice is to go to CAB and speak to a benefits expert. One thing I have found with LAs is keep asking. I was requested 4 times for a backdate for a client - they were entitled to HB but due to learning disabilities and not being able to read their HB was cancelled as they didn't respond to letters. Leaving them with £1200 of rent arrears but the underlying entitlement was there and had they been able to read or had someone helping them this situation wouldn't have happened. I kept putting in appeals. On the 4th time it was approved

DashDotCom

Thank you very much for that.

I think I'll contact CAB then. See what they advise.

Have a good day. :j

nmlc

Evening

You can go back to LA and ask them to reduce the amount they are asking you to repay, they can generally do this, there are set percentages that they are supposed to work out how much they request back depending on your income, this is the amount that they would be able to take back direct from your wages/benefit if you didn't pay back as requested. They are probably asking for you to complete the Means Enquiry form to assess what your income is. CAB as previous poster says should be able to advise you.

HTH

Kind regards

nmlc x

fatbelly

DashDotCom wrote: »

Good evening folks,

After my last visit to the forums I decided I would not enter into a DMP but I would be more proactive in sorting my debts.

I've emailed an ex employer who overpaid me in wages when I handed my notice in (genuine mistake). I have emailed them to let them know of my financial difficulties and that I could only offer a token payment of £1 a month. They have accepted and I now have a standing order.

I made the same offer to the housing benifit people for an over payment of benifits from 2012. They have rejected the offer and request that I fill out a Means Enquiry form for them to assess my situation. As this is the government I assume I need to fill out the form and have them take every penny i have? (As if I don't pay enough taxes already...). Or am I able to stick to my guns and offer the £1?

Thanks for any help.

What you're doing is a dmp (sort of).

You are saying 'I am going to repay you what I can afford and in my case that means you can only have £1'

If that's true then you can evidence that by an income/expenditure statement.

I assume you are not in receipt of Housing Benefit now, at least not with that local authority.

If you are genuinely only able to afford a quid or two per month and are in rented accommodation, maybe you should be looking at a Debt Relief Order - and CAB do most of them so that is a good place to ask for help.

specialkaye

Be as honest as possible on your Expenditure and Income statement, if you can't afford more than a couple of quid the statement will reflect that. The LA will be looking at timeframes for when other debts are due to be paid off and when you would (hopefully) be able to increase the payment so include all other debt payments.

LA's do all work differently and if you are worried do go through your local CAB.

The LA may differ their approach depending on how much the overpayment amounts to and what % your offer represents but the best advice would be to build a rapport with them- especially if you are going to be paying back over a long period of time.

For some context DWP referrals for attachment to benefit is for £3.70 per week.

At the end of the day if £1 is truly all you can afford they may accept it in the short term , after all it's better that than try and pressure you and then have to write it off if you end up getting a DRO/IVA/bankruptcy.

Hope it helps.

phil67

please can anybody tell me why i got a letter saying we are reviewing your benifit claim and we;ve have arranged a time to meet you to talk about any changes . i recieve pension credit and have not worked since i was 66 im now 68 its humiliating that i have to go into a job centre for this meeting nothing has changed in my circumstances. i am disabled ..please can somebody give me advice. all this is making me ill. thank-you
ps sorry if i am in wrong thread .need to know how to start a thread

fatbelly

phil67 wrote: »

please can anybody tell me why i got a letter saying we are reviewing your benifit claim and we;ve have arranged a time to meet you to talk about any changes . i recieve pension credit and have not worked since i was 66 im now 68 its humiliating that i have to go into a job centre for this meeting nothing has changed in my circumstances. i am disabled ..please can somebody give me advice. all this is making me ill. thank-you
ps sorry if i am in wrong thread .need to know how to start a thread

Phil, we can't answer that question - it could be anything or nothing.

From what you say it's not an interview under caution. However, I'm not sure what they hope to achieve from a face-to-face meeting that they can't get by asking you questions in a letter.

That is an option for you to say you are too ill to attend - please let me know in writing what information you require.