U/C overpayment and clawback

ohreallƳ

Hi folks, my nephew  has found himself in the situation whereby he has been allegedly overpaid UC, I am trying to offer some help however this is not an area of knowledge for me and I have advised he make contact with accountable advice, so with that in mind...

Beginning of 2020 he started a claim for UC, this was accepted and put into payment. All application questions were honestly answered, and until beginning of this year all was good. Then following an audit he is informed that a mistake has been and he needs to payback over £11,000.

The reason for this overpayment is they failed to take into account another benefit he receives, industrial injuries disablement benefit, this was disclosed during the application stage.

He is aware mistakes from their end require to be repaid, he doesn't have the money but could get it from another relative.

I've had a look through some of the documentation and tbh I'm struggling a little with it.  My understanding is whatever the monthly award was calculated to be it should then have the IIDB amount deducted from it leaving him with the balance, is this correct?

They seem to be clawing back everything.  They have now contacted him to make arrangements to repay or debt collectors may become involved.

He has a tribunal appeal lodged.

Any help.

HillStreetBlues

ohreallƳ said:

Hi folks, my nephew  has found himself in the situation whereby he has been allegedly overpaid UC, I am trying to offer some help however this is not an area of knowledge for me and I have advised he make contact with accountable advice, so with that in mind...

Beginning of 2020 he started a claim for UC, this was accepted and put into payment. All application questions were honestly answered, and until beginning of this year all was good. Then following an audit he is informed that a mistake has been and he needs to payback over £11,000.

The reason for this overpayment is they failed to take into account another benefit he receives, industrial injuries disablement benefit, this was disclosed during the application stage.

He is aware mistakes from their end require to be repaid, he doesn't have the money but could get it from another relative.

I've had a look through some of the documentation and tbh I'm struggling a little with it.  My understanding is whatever the monthly award was calculated to be it should then have the IIDB amount deducted from it leaving him with the balance, is this correct?

They seem to be clawing back everything.  They have now contacted him to make arrangements to repay or debt collectors may become involved.

He has a tribunal appeal lodged.

Any help.

The industrial injuries disablement benefit should have been classed as unearned income so deducted £1 for £1 from UC.
Under UC regs the overpayment is recoverable (even if it's their mistake)  so any appeal / Tribunal will be fruitless on that basis.
What need to be done is ask for a waiver of recovery and go into all the detail of the mistake and hardship of repayments,  if they refuse a waiver of recovery then that can be appealed (although it's lightly they will side with the DWP unless the argument is very strong).

If after the IIDB deduction your nephew is left with some UC he can contact the DWP to arrange a deduction from his UC to cover the overpayment. 

huckster

IIDB counts as other benefit income when claiming UC  so the UC claim should have been reduced £1 for every £1 received in IIDB.

Unfortunately UC can recover such official error debts, as under UC overpayments for any reason are always recoverable. And Courts Tribunal are not going to help remove the debt.

Under UC any overpayment debts are gradually  recovered by a small deduction each month. There is no need to enter into repayment separately with DWP, if there are live benefits to have deductions made from.  I think overall deductions from benefits are now limited to 15% of the UC standard allowance amount.

What you could have done is to have made a formal complaint using DWP complaints process and asked for all or some of the overpayment to be written off. It is rare for DWP to apply a write off.

ohreallƳ

DWP actually started clawback, he was unaware at first, then his claim was closed down following 2 months of nil payment meaning he has been without UC payments for some months.

Ty for the suggestions.