Claiming UC reimbursement after work overpayment

ikcdab

Hello all,
I receive UC with the LCW element and PIP.
I have been receiving UC to top up my wages.
I left my job at the end of May. However, my employer (the NHS) paid me in error a full months wages (£883) at the end of June.
Because of these wages, my June UC payment was reduced by £375.
I am now being asked to repay the £883 back to the NHS.
However, if i pay this amount, i will be £375 out of pocket, this being the amount my UC was reduced by.
How on earth would i go about getting this £375 back? I will be looking at a payment plan with the NHS where i send them a cheque at a regular interval to pay the money back.
I have since been unemployed.
Thank you

pmlindyloo

ikcdab wrote: »

Hello all,
I receive UC with the LCW element and PIP.
I have been receiving UC to top up my wages.
I left my job at the end of May. However, my employer (the NHS) paid me in error a full months wages (£883) at the end of June.
Because of these wages, my June UC payment was reduced by £375.
I am now being asked to repay the £883 back to the NHS.
However, if i pay this amount, i will be £375 out of pocket, this being the amount my UC was reduced by.
How on earth would i go about getting this £375 back? I will be looking at a payment plan with the NHS where i send them a cheque at a regular interval to pay the money back.
I have since been unemployed.
Thank you

My thoughts...………..

First of all - have you checked that the overpayment of wages is correct?

Presuming that the overpayment is correct...…

Have you telephoned Payroll and asked if they are going to issue a correction to HMRC about this mistake?

UC collects real time information from HMRC which would have shown that you did receive this money - hence the deduction from your UC (I am sure you realise this).

If your employer corrects the wrong information given to HMRC it is possible that this will filter down to UC. To be honest, I have not met this scenario before.

It is also possible that UC would treat this as a debt - you have been paid incorrectly and now this payment becomes a debt that you owe. It is also possible that UC would assume that you should have known that there was an overpayment yet did nothing about it - hence your debt.

It is also possible that if the NHS was at fault, then you should not have to pay it back - this would depend on your contract and what it says. Generally, such mistakes have to be paid back but usually by a payment plan (what have you negotiated?)

You might like to speak to Citizens Advice about this and see if they have any advice about which route to take.

Hopefully having 'bumped' this up someone else will try to help.

Have looked at the UC decision makers guide and can find nothing about such a scenario.

ikcdab

pmlindyloo wrote: »

My thoughts...………..

First of all - have you checked that the overpayment of wages is correct?

Presuming that the overpayment is correct...…

Have you telephoned Payroll and asked if they are going to issue a correction to HMRC about this mistake?

UC collects real time information from HMRC which would have shown that you did receive this money - hence the deduction from your UC (I am sure you realise this).

If your employer corrects the wrong information given to HMRC it is possible that this will filter down to UC. To be honest, I have not met this scenario before.

It is also possible that UC would treat this as a debt - you have been paid incorrectly and now this payment becomes a debt that you owe. It is also possible that UC would assume that you should have known that there was an overpayment yet did nothing about it - hence your debt.

It is also possible that if the NHS was at fault, then you should not have to pay it back - this would depend on your contract and what it says. Generally, such mistakes have to be paid back but usually by a payment plan (what have you negotiated?)

You might like to speak to Citizens Advice about this and see if they have any advice about which route to take.

Hopefully having 'bumped' this up someone else will try to help.

Have looked at the UC decision makers guide and can find nothing about such a scenario.

Thank you. I left th job on 31 May and was paid correctly until then. The NHS failed to put in the correct leaving form and so i was incorrectly paid a full months wages on 30 June. I immediatly visited the hospital and ensuired the correct forms were filled in and i took them to the payroil department.
At the moment, as i am disabled and now unable to pay the money back, and as it wasnt my fault, I am asking for it to be written off. We will see what happens.
Thank you. I can't imagine this is the first time it has occured....

NedS

ikcdab wrote: »

Hello all,
I receive UC with the LCW element and PIP.
I have been receiving UC to top up my wages.
I left my job at the end of May. However, my employer (the NHS) paid me in error a full months wages (£883) at the end of June.
Because of these wages, my June UC payment was reduced by £375.
I am now being asked to repay the £883 back to the NHS.
However, if i pay this amount, i will be £375 out of pocket, this being the amount my UC was reduced by.
How on earth would i go about getting this £375 back? I will be looking at a payment plan with the NHS where i send them a cheque at a regular interval to pay the money back.
I have since been unemployed.
Thank you

Because you received the money, it will be taken into account for UC purposes in the assessment period (AP) it was received.

If you knew you were paid incorrectly (i.e, you should not have received that money), what you should have done was to repay it to your employer and then show evidence to UC that you repaid it and get your UC award adjusted in that AP (easy to say in hindsight)

As that has now passed, the repaid earnings should count as negative earnings for the AP in which you repay them. Of course this only actually helps you if you have equal or higher earnings in that AP to offset against. If not, can you delay paying them back until a month when you do have earnings to offset against. It doesn't matter where those earnings come from - could be you from another employer, or your partner's earnings as it's all treated as household earnings for the AP. I would try to delay paying them back as long as possible so that hopefully you have started work again and can offset anything paid back in that month. Maybe agree to start repaying once you re-enter employment.

If you have to pay the money back then I do not really see any way around this from a UC perspective.

ikcdab

NedS wrote: »

Because you received the money, it will be taken into account for UC purposes in the assessment period (AP) it was received.

If you knew you were paid incorrectly (i.e, you should not have received that money), what you should have done was to repay it to your employer and then show evidence to UC that you repaid it and get your UC award adjusted in that AP (easy to say in hindsight)

As that has now passed, the repaid earnings should count as negative earnings for the AP in which you repay them. Of course this only actually helps you if you have equal or higher earnings in that AP to offset against. If not, can you delay paying them back until a month when you do have earnings to offset against. It doesn't matter where those earnings come from - could be you from another employer, or your partner's earnings as it's all treated as household earnings for the AP.

If you have to pay the money back then I do not really see any way around this from a UC perspective.

Thank you. As i explained above, as soon as I was paid, i went to the hospital and told them - this was 28 June. I was told that nothing could happen until i received an invoice from the NHS. This took until now (26 Sept) to arrive. So i could not pay it any earlier - this is the NHS we are dealing with.
I am now unemployed and no future wages in prospect.
I am going to write back and ask for it to be written off, in view of my disability and limited financial means.
Is £880 really worth them pursuing?

ArcticRoll

Your employer would need to update their records with HMRC which would then generate a 'check underpayment' action for the case manager to review for that assessment period. Alternatively simply ask for an appointment to take down evidence that you are asked to pay back the £883, form which £375 was deducted from your Universal Credit award for that month and they'll likely process a manual payment for you.

Technically even though you received it, it isn't money you were entitled to and you would be responsible for paying it back, therefore UC cannot class that as income. You wouldn't have to prove that you have paid it back, simply that you were not entitled to that in the first place. Any arrangements you make with your employer to pay the money back isn't any of UC's business.

huckster

If NHS update your HMRC record which they will have to do anyway, the earnings paid on 30th June will then show as zero. Once the NHS do this, ask for them to confirm this is writing.

You then contact UC to raise an RTI earnings dispute, providing the NHS letter. UC can check the HMRC earnings information data which should confirm that the NHS have amended the 30th June earnings to zero. Your UC statement which included the 30th June £883 earnings would then be adjusted to remove those earnings, meaning you receive a payment from UC.

Once you have received the payment from UC, you should be in a position to enter into a repayment arrangement with the NHS, as you did receive the £883 from them. It is very unlikely the NHS would write this off and you will have to come to repayment arrangement with them.

ArcticRoll

Once the RTI has been updated you won't need to provide evidence that you shouldn't have/technically didn't receive earnings of £883 in that assessment period as the system will have automatically triggered an underpayment action.

As soon as the RTI feed confirms that the earnings information previously held was wrong, there are no grounds to ask you to provide evidence proving that the earnings information previously held was wrong.