Letter from DWP ESTATES

adw112

I am the executor for my uncles estate. Probate has been granted. The estate is £52000. There are still bills to be paid from this. I have received a letter from DWP estates asking for bank account details and final balances so they can check for any overpayment of benefits.  My uncle was left an inheritance of £46000 9 years ago and this was never spent. He informed DWP about his inheritance as he was in receipt of pension credit. He received a letter, which was shown to me stating as he was receiving pension credit for an indefinite assessed income period, the savings do not affect his entitlement. Has anyone else had to deal with this? The letter states not to distribute the estate. I have explained this to his beneficiaries. 

Mojisola

adw112 said:

I am the executor for my uncles estate. Probate has been granted. The estate is £52000. There are still bills to be paid from this. I have received a letter from DWP estates asking for bank account details and final balances so they can check for any overpayment of benefits.  My uncle was left an inheritance of £46000 9 years ago and this was never spent. He informed DWP about his inheritance as he was in receipt of pension credit. He received a letter, which was shown to me stating as he was receiving pension credit for an indefinite assessed income period, the savings do not affect his entitlement. Has anyone else had to deal with this?

Many of us have done - don't worry about it - it's sent out to put the estate on hold until information is provided.

Just reply with the details you've given here.

sassyblue

We had three of these supposedly 'random' checks when father in law died a few years ago.  We've also had one within 10 days of my dad dying, It’s simply the government checking they haven’t overpaid anyone a shilling. 

Father in law never owed them anything. And I’m positive my dad won’t either, so I’m ignoring it until they come back and confirm everything is correct.

SevenOfNine

3 times now, it's pretty common. Just send what they've asked for & wait for them to confirm if anything is owed or not.

grandes57

I haven’t commented on here for years. So forgive me as I’m now considered a newbie😀
Anywho. I’ve had one of these letters and paid £625 that they said my mum owed and now I’ve had another which is quite abrupt saying 
“we strongly advise you do not distribute the estate until you hear further from us”

so I trawled and found this article on this is money apparently bereaved people do not have to return state pension. Look it up 👁
Hope this helps. I’m going to put it to the test if they ask for anything more. She only had 10k and 4of that is to pay her funeral. She died of COVID in a nursing home and the DWP are bullying me 

I’ll let you know the outcome

SevenOfNine

grandes57 Link is here, haven't read it yet, I paid the one that was due (she was advance paid). https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-6830067/Bereaved-people-NOT-return-state-pension-wrongly-paid-deceased.html

GSS20

The DWP will be looking Into the estate to see if the deceased should have been awarded pension credit in the first place. They do it as a matter of course when they received the probate details and the estate  value suggests there was money not appropriate to receiving benefits. When you provide them with the details they will see that the deceased declared the inheritance and the balance they had when pension credit was awarded and that they were on an indefinite assessment period. I had to actually write to the DWP for clearance as I never received any notifications although I was 99.9% certain that she was entitled to pension credit. It turned out that they had never received the information from the grant of Confirmation (Scotland). It took me months to get it sorted. Definitely do not distribute to the beneficiaries until you have a letter of clearance from DWP else the executors may become personally liable if they decided otherwise.

GSS20

grandes57 said:

I haven’t commented on here for years. So forgive me as I’m now considered a newbie😀
Anywho. I’ve had one of these letters and paid £625 that they said my mum owed and now I’ve had another which is quite abrupt saying 
“we strongly advise you do not distribute the estate until you hear further from us”

so I trawled and found this article on this is money apparently bereaved people do not have to return state pension. Look it up 👁
Hope this helps. I’m going to put it to the test if they ask for anything more. She only had 10k and 4of that is to pay her funeral. She died of COVID in a nursing home and the DWP are bullying me 

I’ll let you know the outcome

Did your mum receive pension credit? If so this will be what they are looking into. DWP have no legal powers to reclaim overpayment of pension after death  but they do have powers to reclaim any benefit that they weren’t entitled to in the first place or if the deceased was already paying back an overpayment, the DWP can reclaim the balance.

Skiddaw1

Your uncle was subject to an indefinite AIP so the capital would have had no effect on his PC. Don't worry- there's no overpayment. The DWP can really drag their feet in dealing with it so if necessary, chase them up (and get your MP involved if the delays become unreasonable).

adw112

Thank you for your replies. I sent them all of the required information. I have received a letter today stating that he may have been paid too much income related benefit and they will write again when they have heard from the office that paid the benefits. I will wait for their letter.

GSS20

Gillian01, how old was the person when they were assessed, if over 75 then it’s an automatic indefinite assessment period, if they were below this age prior to 2016 an AIP would last for 5 years and reassessed but no new AIP were given after 2016 so were no longer protected by this. If they reached the age of 75 before April 2016 then they should of had an indefinite AIP in place I would have thought.