Possible Housing Benefit Overpayment

BramblingStoker

Thanks to those who replied. This issue has now been resolved. I spoke to someone at the council today and she was as puzzled as we were, so she got a supervisor to look at the case. It turns out that an admin error dating back to way back when was the cause of the oversight. Since the issue was nothing to do with us then we are not liable for it. There's every chance that the mistake would've continued to go unnoticed, but to be honest, I'm just glad that it has been sorted... especially given some of the more frightening alternatives.

Drawingaline

BramblingStoker said:

Thanks to those who replied. This issue has now been resolved. I spoke to someone at the council today and she was as puzzled as we were, so she got a supervisor to look at the case. It turns out that an admin error dating back to way back when was the cause of the oversight. Since the issue was nothing to do with us then we are not liable for it. There's every chance that the mistake would've continued to go unnoticed, but to be honest, I'm just glad that it has been sorted... especially given some of the more frightening alternatives.

We had an error which led to an overpayment of income based JSA to my husband back in 2016. We suspended a claim while we went on a (pre redundancy booked) holiday. When we came back the claim was restarted and for some reason it switched from contribution based JSA to income based which we were not entitled to. First we knew about it was when I was called in for an interview to find out if I could find work. I was already working two jobs and this had been declared in the initial application by my husband along with my income etc. 

It was obviously a huge error in their system, we gave all my documents in and were upfront with everything, my husband found work a month later and it was all written off as a clerical error.

Glad you also had a good outcome. That moment when you panic and know it isn't fradulant but due to having not claimed benefits before more a naive belief in the system working is a horrible feeling. We knew we had done nothing worth, but the guilty feeling still kicked in!

calcotti

BramblingStoker said:

Thanks to those who replied. This issue has now been resolved. I spoke to someone at the council today and she was as puzzled as we were, so she got a supervisor to look at the case. It turns out that an admin error dating back to way back when was the cause of the oversight. Since the issue was nothing to do with us then we are not liable for it. There's every chance that the mistake would've continued to go unnoticed, but to be honest, I'm just glad that it has been sorted... especially given some of the more frightening alternatives.

That's an excellent result. Glad you can sleep easy now.
You may want to make and retain some detailed notes about your conversations just in case you need them in the future.

adviceforeveryone

Glad you got it sorted out and stop worrying. 
Years ago while on working tax credits, the renewal form came and at the top was do you receive any of a list of benefits, my partner did so we ticked it, it then said no further details were needed, we then later got our award letter and all was good, then they decided there was an error which they said was our fault but all we had to do was tick a box, they worked out the money and we assumed they had got it right. It cost us over 6k for ticking a box ( which was correct) and them telling you how much they would pay.. we did appeal it but it was upheld so really glad you sorted yours to a much better outcome.