Tax Credit Overpayment HELP!! 700 pounds

akaddcmp

hello all,

basically this is how the story goes:

earlier this year i became homeless and was put into council temp Accomodation, i have a daughter who is nearly a year old now however at that time she was aroud 1 month old. i started claiming CTC in January and i was awarded around 700 pounds for that period - till april. now i recieved a letter when i moved into my permanant place after the council rehoused me and it was regarding the period between feb - april. apparantly they sent me 2 letters which i did NOT recieve at the temp accomodation (it had a shared mailbox which was easily openable - i think someone was jackin the letters) now these 2 letters were letters i had to sign and return to them which i did not (coz i dint recieve them) now they are saying that i have been overpaid for the whole period because i dint sign the letters.

i dont know what to do, they have said that if i signed the letters then i would have been paid right however i never recieved the letters and yet they say they sent them - they dint send em recorded delivery or signed for so i cant prove i dint recieve them. what do i do now? 700 pounds is alot of money please help.

ddcmp

bump bump.....

all i need to know is if they have sent a letter to be signed and returned which i did not recieve maybe due to the postman not delivering or the letter being nicked from the shared mailbox then can they claim overpayment and can i dispute it?

im really stressed about this, i cant afford that much money to pay them back

vanilla

You can appeal the decision, if you ring them and tell them that you wish to appeal as you think it is unfair, they should send you a form to fill in and send back. I'm in the same sort of situation at the minute.

LuciferTDark

At the end of the day if they still decide you have to pay it back (which is highly likely) they won't expect you to pay it all in one go.

I was overpaid a while back & all they did was decrease the amount that I got paid until it was cleared, it's not a major financial disaster in the making, so don't panic

jay1jay

Don't say you want to appeal - there is no right of appeal against an overpayment and they will just send you a letter saying that. Instead, say you want to 'dispute' the overpayment. Its not likely you will get the overpayment written off though - its not their mistake, its Royal Mails or whoever nicked the letters. They only write of overpayments that happened because they made a mistake.

jay1jay

Also, was the letter you got in April a Statement of Account? These say Statement of Account on the front page and say that you must contact the tax credit office within 30 days, or else you will have to repay the money you had. If it was a Statament of Account and you contacted them within 30 days, you won't have to repay the overpayment. If you didn't rely to the Statement of Account within 30 days (or if you didnt receive it) you will probably have to repay the overpayment. You can pay monthly, and they will take your income and outgoings into account.