DWP timescales

lisyloo

does anyone know how long DWP and attendance allowance unit are taking to respond?

also do they still write if they decide you owe nothing or it’s too small to collect?
Our appears to have been stopped very quickly (or cut off by the bank but no returns showing on statement)

thirdly who do they contact? The person that registered the death or the person that did tell us once. I have a very uncommunicative relative (possibly due to grief)

BooJewels

I can't really offer a definitive answer for you, I'm in a similar position - waiting to close a bank account. 

My father was slightly underpaid state pension by 10 days and I think overpaid AA by about 3 or 4 days - which means they owe him a couple of hundred quid or so - not much, but better in the estate than their pocket.  My sister reported through the Tell Us Once service on a Tuesday (5 weeks ago) and his pension due that Friday never appeared and no further payments of anything, so they were certainly on the ball about stopping payments.  We haven't informed the bank yet, so they won't have stopped anything.

I tried ringing DWP, but was on hold a long time and on looking on the Tell Us Once service web page, it says they (HMRC and DWP) "will contact you about the tax, benefits and entitlements of the person who died".  So we decided that would probably be directly to my sister as she filled in the form and we'd maybe just have to wait to hear from them.  I did the AA application, at the time, under an LPA, so they might possibly write to me, as it's in my name. 

Just looking at the Tell Us Once confirmation document it takes the form of a letter addressed to my sister and contains the comment that she is the "person dealing with the deceased affairs:"  So that would suggest that they'll write to her.

lisyloo

Thanks. I didn’t expect to hear from them quickly but it’s been 2 months now.

BooJewels

Crikey.  As I said to you in another thread I think, you seem to be about 3 weeks ahead of me in this process - so it's obviously taking a while. 

I have a claim in for myself for Carer's Allowance and it's just passed 8 weeks and they rang today, apologetic that it's taken so long, but sorting it over the phone, rather than writing for confirmation of something.  So they're all getting very behind.  I assume that it's a combination of reduced numbers due to self-isolating, distancing etc., and some staff must be being re-deployed to other departments - so everything is spread thin.

I'll just have to hope that if there is a balance to pay, they'll pay it either to my sister and she can pay it in to one of her accounts, or they'll send it to the original account and the bank will forward it to the account we'll nominate when we close his account.

kevinamanda1

I had to contact AA,because they overpaid my mum for 13 weeks before she died in April,even after they were informed.But they are saying that any overpayments are not priority at the moment,and they will contact us in due course which doesn't help while trying to sort out her estate. 

BooJewels

I suppose all that you can do @kevinamanda1 is work out what is likely to be owed and ring fence the money somewhere and exclude it from the estate accounts, until they ask for it back.

lisyloo

BooJewels said:

I suppose all that you can do @kevinamanda1 is work out what is likely to be owed and ring fence the money somewhere and exclude it from the estate accounts, until they ask for it back.

Agree, I managed to estimate all the estate debts fairly well and kept back a bit more.

lisyloo

It was not possible to contact DWP during lockdown, the calls to the “deceased” line got cut off (I tried it loads of times). Also getting death certificates in the post took about 1 week. There was no alternative but to use “tell us once” which seems to be working really quickly. Phone calls I’ve made have taken up to 2 hours to get through.
NSI have had a backlog as have the banks and OPG, so it’s all somewhat different under lockdown.
i was just after a rough timescale for DWP so I know when to chase them up.

kevinamanda1

That's what I'am going to do.As I have a good idea how much is owed

kevinamanda1

Hi can anyone tell me if there is a time scale,that the DWP have to contact you by to claim back an overpayment.As I've still not heard anything regarding the overpayment to my mum.

hb2

It was 6 months after my Mum died that I got a letter from DWP saying there had been an overpayment (as it happened, there hadn't been any overpayment, the registrar had put the wrong date on 'Tell us once').