Annual Declaration

[Deleted User]

If the annual declaration is not received by around the middle of June/July you are sent a reminder.

If it is then not received by 31st July your claim terminates within around a week.

Your payments will stop (an easy was of realising it has terminated I would assume) and you will be sent a letter telling you this.

You have 30 days from the date it terminates to call up and give your annual declaration details. Most people who have genuinely sent it in as well as those who forgot or couldnt be bothered will probably call to query why their payments have stopped and at this point can be told that TCO have not received it and they will need to call back to complete it on the phone.

If you do not call up your claim will not be re-instated unless you have "good cause". Good cause would be if you have been in hospital for a length of time or a close family member is critically ill. Other reasons MIGHT be accepted as good cause but the adviser on the phone doesnt decide this, they would need to refer your details to TCO. You must have a very good reason for being non-compliant otherwise any payments made between 6th April and the date of termination will be classed as an overpayment. TCO will use the estimated figure held for the previous years income to finalise that award as you have not given them any other figure that they can use.

In most cases there is no good cause - you have plenty of time to complete the declaration then you get 30 days from the termination date to give the details as requested.

*************************************************************

In the case of the OP she may not have known straight away that it was not received as she had already ended the old claim but she would have been sent a reminder to say it hadnt been received as well as a SOA (statement of account) showing that her claim had been terminated. She would have been notified of an overpayment at this time. The OP may dispute the overpayment if none of this was received but it is highly unlikely that NONE of the correspondance arrived through the post.

*************************************************************

On a final note, if you want proof the annual declaration has been sent you can go to your post office to send it and request a certificate of posting. It costs nothing to get this proof of postage, you dont need to send it recorded unless you want to but this will be proof it was signed for rather than just proof you sent it. Either way this is good evidence if you need to dispute anything with TCO.

bestpud

subsoniccoyote - thanks for explaining that. I thought it odd people could go a year before being informed!

I did mine over the phone this year and would have called to chase it up if I hadn't received an award within about a month anyway.

Tell me I'm OTT, but when I write to tax credits or any other govt agency, I always send it recorded as I like to see proof it has got there!

SuziQ

This has actually jogged something important for me!
My payments didn't stop until they wrote and told me in the late september that my claim had ended due to me not returning paperwork and I started my appeal-I assumed the payments stopped as they were recaiming the money,which is what happened in my previous 2 overpayment disputes. I was therefore not aware paperwork was missing due to missed payments.
I have my statements to show all of this and feel it may help my case,as I had no reason to query when payments were continuing.I was only on the basic as both my husband and I were working at the time,otherwise I think the prospect of repayment would have given me a nervous breakdown-I am getting as much a month now as I used to get per year (approx) .
Will see how I can word this into my next letter.

LINDYDAWN

SUBSONICCOYOTE

"She would have been notified of an overpayment at this time."

I was notified in writing as i have said in my previous post, but when I called the office the girl said it was because I had put a cross in estimated income instead of actual income, that was supposedly sorted - obviously not - nothing more heard till a demand for overpayment, my payments were not stopped because I made a new claim so that never made me aware that any thing was wrong:rolleyes: As for SOA nothing cane on that to say I owed any monies to them ?????? Have you any further advice for me ???
LD

[Deleted User]

If you gave this information on the phone then you should obviously dispute giving the approximate date of the call.

Or you could make a subject access request (SAR) to get a copy of all the calls you made and of your claim notes. There is a recording and note for every call.

I am sorry but I find it hard to believe you did not receive any paperwork at all regarding the claim being terminated due to non-return of annual declaration. I am not saying it is impossible, maybe there is an issue with the post man/woman!? Or maybe the paperwork did arrive and it was overlooked for some reason. We will never know but the main thing is if you did confirm the actual figure on the phone you should submit a SAR and dispute the overpayment.

euphemia

Sorry to jump in but I am in the same position but for 05-06.

They said that they didnt receive my form, so I sent in another. I got a letter saying they were waiting on more info which I gave over the phone. A few weeks later I got a letter telling me what I was entitled to. Then another few weeks later got a letter from there recovery office stating that I was to pay nearly £4000.

I phoned and was told thatit was their mistake and that it would be taken off their system. Good. Then nearly £700 went into my bank and then payments stopped in June 06.

Again just before xmas I got more letters demanding the same amount so went to the CAB who made phone calls on my behalf and was told that Tax credit would phone me within 48 hrs.

Heard nothing until xmas 07 demanding the same amount so again I went to CAB and again nobody has contacted me. I received the new froms and sent them off andwhen I checked my bank they have started to pay me £10.45 per week. What is going on? I thought I owed the £4000, why are they still paying me money?

LINDYDAWN

euphemia

Thank you for jumping in because I was starting to think that this could only happen to me. I have done as far as Im concerned all the correct things even down to making a phone call when they claimed I owed the money back and they told me it was down to the fact we had put a x in the estimated instead of actual this was suppose to have been resolved there and then . I know from one or two posts Ive had they find it hard to believe that I had no notice of overpayment but my ending award form from my single claim did not state I had been over paid My next move will be to ask for a list of all the calls and I am sure the one i made to clarify actual instead of estimated will be there. If I thought I was wrong I would say but I feel they are trying to make me pay something I genuinely do not owe. It is hard when you have trusted these people and not felt the need to make a note of the posted letters and the phone calls, but you can be sure all the correspondence I am having now it kept fully logged down - what a shame on a government organisation that we have to prove every single thing we do to fight a case, my next port of call will be my MP< thats how certain I am that I have done all that I should have LD:o :j :rolleyes: Hope you get sorted soon.

LINDYDAWN

oh and by the way they are paying me 40.00 odd pound a month at the moment ??? like you not sure what the hell is going on ?????????

SuziQ

LINDYDAWN wrote: »

oh and by the way they are paying me 40.00 odd pound a month at the moment ??? like you not sure what the hell is going on ?????????

They don't always accept repayment from an existing claim-hence you can still be recieving benefit during a dispute,as I am. When a claim is closed ie previous year,change from single/joint vuce/versa then the overpayment has to be paid back seperately.
I have no idea how I will repay,especially as my CTC is due to drop soon as my 17 year old will be going off to college and losing childbenefit too-have been told I will lose £170 from my £500 benefit,am barely managing as it stands!

euphemia

I have had notices from them, with the amounts they say I am due, which say the overpayments will be collected from future awards any no money will be payable to me until it is paid.

Bl##dy Government. They NEVER make mistakes!!!