income support stopped

beady1_2

this is a long story but here goes but will try to keep it short.
i have just had my income support and housing benefit stopped because they say i have over the £16000. back in dec 2006 my husband committed suicide,(we was not together at this point and i was living elsewhere) he was made bankcrupt earlier in 2006 so there was lots of debts, once the properties was sold i then went on to repay two members of my family who he had borrowed from, i also went on to pay someone i borrowed money from to help me pay for the funeral as the grant i received no way near covered the cost. by the time i brought a small car oh yes and a new tv there was nothing left. i never at no time thought i was doing anything wrong i just wanted to get debts repaid to my family. my head has been all over the place since the death of my husband i am now on anti depression tablets, they are now saying that i have to repay over £5000 in housing benefit nearly £1000 in council tax benefit and about £1500 in income support. On top of all this i am about to be evicted not through any fault of my own but the landlord wants his house back, so i have now waiting to be evicted on 13 march 2008 and now i am in £2000.00 arrears so thats not going to go down well with the council as they will now say that because there are arrears that i have made myself intentional homeless, so i dont know what me and my children are going to do. i was never interviewed under caution and the lady that interviewed me didn't think i had any thing to worry about and said that she could see what i had done with the money. at the moment i am awaiting an appeal, when i speak to income support or housing benefit face to face you can see from their faces that they believe me it just seems when its in black and white they dont i have now provided them with letters from the people i paid back and all of the funeral cost etc.so does anyone know if i am likely to win my appeal at the moment i have been waiting 3 weeks since the appeal has gone in and have now re applied for housing benefit.

Graham_Devon

Did you tell them you had £16,000? If not, thats where you went wrong.

looby75

Beady, first of all I just wanted to say sorry to hear about your loss, I can totally understand why you "were in a bit of mess". If you haven't already you need to get some professional help and advice, go to your local Citizens Advice Bureau and make an appointment to see on of their welfare rights advisor's. Take as much paperwork as you have even if you think it is irrelevant it's suprising what a trained eye can find.

The thing is when you are depressed and grieving it's very tempting to bury you head in the sand and that's why it's really important to have someone on your side fighting with you. Good luck.

terryw

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Did you tell them you had £16,000? If not, thats where you went wrong.

Oh no Graham. Very bad advice........this leads to court cases, fines and possible prison.

Beady, this looks like the Authorities are claiming disposal of capital to claim benefit.
You need help here. CAB or solicitor who accepts legal aid. Make application now for re-housing and don't wait until eviction day.

Graham_Devon

terryw wrote: »

Oh no Graham. Very bad advice........this leads to court cases, fines and possible prison.

Beady, this looks like the Authorities are claiming disposal of capital to claim benefit.
You need help here. CAB or solicitor who accepts legal aid. Make application now for re-housing and don't wait until eviction day.

Why would it? I meant when she got the £16,000, did she tell them?

beady1_2

i never thought of informing anyone i just thought the money was own out and that was my main concern, i never set out to to do faud as they say now looking back i should HAVE TOLD them but my head was all over the place

Graham_Devon

beady1 wrote: »

i never thought of informing anyone i just thought the money was own out and that was my main concern, i never set out to to do faud as they say now looking back i should HAVE TOLD them but my head was all over the place

It's probably a fraud route then, sorry to say it, but thats most probably what it is.

poet123

Look,please calm down,you will have to repay the monies owed(at a reasonable amount)but I think it very unlikely that under the circumstances a fraud issue will arise. You can presumbably get medical evidence to support your claims and obviously this was an extreme trauma.

Get some advice,and be apologetic and sincere with the people investigating the case. I worked on the fraud team for some time and believe me they can tell when there has been intent to defraud,and when someone has made a genuine mistake whilst under pressure.

Good luck

vaio

Seems to me if you inherited 16k and didn’t tell them then you are rightly in trouble.

If on the other hand you were distributing your late husbands estate to pay off his debts then you should be in the clear

Fran

Re housing, if you haven't already contact Shelter who are the experts in homeless and potential homeless. They will be able to tell you the best way forward in your area.

maninthestreet

No 'Ifs', no 'Buts' - you've seen the adverts on TV.