Universal Credit

michno8

My son is self employed and claimed universal credit from April 2020 to April 2021. He filled in his monthly earnings and minus expenses when in lockdown and was paid accordingly each month . Some months he got the full entitlement  some months non at all and some months under £20 . He has now received a letter asking for every single payment back . Was Universal Credit for self employed people just a loan ? Any advice welcome please.

Alice_Holt

No it wasn't a loan.
UC is a means-tested benefit.

Why are UC saying there is an overpayment?

Did he have savings of over £16k?

Your son may wish to contact his local advice charity with all the paperwork.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/contact-us/contact-us/

calcotti

UC is not a loan.
DWP are currently checking all claims made last year when normal checking procedures wee suspended. It sounds as if DWP may have asked him for some additional supporting evidence which he has failed to supply (probably because he is no longer checking a UC journal) and they have then invalidated the claim.
If he can still access his journal he needs to check it to see if he has missed any messages.
He needs to contact UC and ask them what has happened and request a Mandatory Reconsideration of the decision to treat his payments as an overpayment. To help he should supply any information they have requested.
It is not clear that DWP have any legal power to recover monies paid on the basis of a failure to supply information applied retrospectively.
There's a discussion on the subject here
https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/17067/

michno8

Thankyou , it appears they are saying that he did not verify his identity therefore owes the money paid from April 2020 to April 2021. He could not verify via gov.uk but did it via a telephone call from a work coach . Once verified they allowed his advance payment . Which is not allowed until verification . He had regular telephone contact with his work coach and they had details from his employer when he got a temporary job . His earnings etc .

Alice_Holt

michno8 said:

Thankyou , it appears they are saying that he did not verify his identity therefore owes the money paid from April 2020 to April 2021. He could not verify via gov.uk but did it via a telephone call from a work coach . Once verified they allowed his advance payment . Which is not allowed until verification . He had regular telephone contact with his work coach and they had details from his employer when he got a temporary job . His earnings etc .

        Then (as calcotti says) he needs to supply the requested info,  and raise a MR re the overpayment decision, in writing on form CRMR1.   Keep all correspondence.  Get phone records to prove calls to the job coach,etc.

      https://www.gov.uk/mandatory-reconsideration

     https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/universal-credit/problems-with-your-payment/challenging-a-universal-credit-decision-mandatory-consideration/

tomtom256

All claims made between March 2020 and July 2021 have had several appointments made to verify ID, as it wasn't done fully, as part of covid easements.

If he checks his journal, he should see several messages about appointments and answering a call, so that ID verifcation could be done and that if he failed to attend and verify, he would have to pay everything back.

Get him to check unless his claim has been closed down, as he won't be able to see it.

michno8

Hi . Thankyou . When did dwp start initiating this please as his claim stopped in April 2021 and he had no need to then go on his journal.  He started a new claim in September due to housing changes so can no longer see his old claim . 

tomtom256

It started a few months ago around the end of July I think it was, but some areas may have started earlier. So in that case as per above, an MR is the only option.

I have seen a few claims where they have been closed from outset with the same issue.

calcotti

As advised - he needs to request a Mandatory Reconsideration of the decision to treat his UC payments as an overpayment. 

When you say his claim stopped in April 2021 was it just that he had earnings resulting in nothing being payable or did he actually ask UC to close his claim? If the former then the claim will still have been live and DWP would have expected him still to be checking his journal for any messages. If the latter then I think he could argue that it would be unreasonable for DWP to expect this and that if they, retrospectively, wanted more information from him they should have communicated with him in a different way (I'm assuming they didn't).

There are going to be a lot of cases like this and I suspect that at some stage one will go all the way to a tribunal which will establish whether or not the DWP have the legal power to do what thy are doing (as discussed in the thread I liked to earlier).

tomtom256

Unfortunetly Calcotti, those on the repair teams have, surprise, surprise had little training and do not understand what they are doing and mainly come from the Counter Fraud and Compliance Directorate.

Even JCP and service centre staff cannot speak with them to sort out issues, as they have no interets in listening and to quote "are just following their guidance", I have even had a repair team leader asking me not to contact them as they are too busy.

I have seen journal messages and handovers sent to them that go ignored for weeks.

calcotti

tomtom256 said:

Unfortunetly Calcotti, those on the repair teams have, surprise, surprise had little training and do not understand what they are doing and mainly come from the Counter Fraud and Compliance Directorate.

I expect that the directive is that if claimants do not respond their previous payments are to be treated as overpaid. However there appears to be, or is at lastly arguably not, any legal basis for doing this retrospectively. Clearly where evidence becomes available that was not previously known and shows that the claim was incorrectly calculated then recovery will, if applicable, be lawful. Absence of verification of information previously taken on trust is not the same thing.