Background

I received an ACAS out of court conciliation settlement in May 2014 from my previous employer with whom I was in a ‘zero hours’ contract. At this time I informed the Housing Benefit Department that I received this amount of money.

At this time the HB Department considered this payment as savings and not as income and stopped my housing benefit for one month because I was over the £16000 savings limit because of this payment

Then in July 2015 I filed my Self- Employment Earning Statement and I mistakenly included this amount in it. For this reason the Housing Benefit Department changed its minds and considered this payment as income and told me that I have an overpayment of HB of £5000

I asked the Housing Benefit Department to reconsider its decision telling it that I made a mistake in my Self- Employment Earning Statement and I asked it to comply with its initial decision and consider this amount only as savings but not as income. As a consequence it decreased my overpayment from £5000 to £3000 because it takes into account this amount only from the 11 May 2014 when I received it to the end of the financial years on the 05 April 2015. However it refused to consider this amount as savings and not as income and refused to cancel entirely this overpayment

The Housing Benefit Department replied me the following:

“We are allowed to include the Employment Tribunal Award as part of your income; however. I have only included it from the decision dated up to the end of your financial year which is 05/04/15”

I think that there are four issues involved in my case

1.

The first issue is whether this payment was income

1.1

I found a big guide about overpayment in the following website

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-benefit-overpayments-guide

However this document does give any definition of what is ‘income’. Hence I would like to know if there is a law which give a definition of it or we have to rely only on the Oxford dictionary definition which says

“Money received, especially on a regular basis, for work or through investments”

1.2

I would like to know if any of the following points matter

1. Contrary to what says the HB department it is an ACAS out of court conciliation payment but not an award from the Employment Tribunal

2. I was not anymore an employee of this employer. It was a payment from my previous employer not my current employer

3. My previous employer accept voluntary to pay me this amount of money without admitting liability as stated in the ACAS agreement that we signed

4. My claim in the Employment Tribunal was for unfair dismissal and detrimental treatment but only for a very small amount as unlawful deduction of wages

5. Would have the HB department taken the same decision if it would have been an out of court settlement from a County Court?

6. This amount is not taxable so I did not need to declare it in my return but I mistakenly declared it

7. I have not worked to get this payment and according to the Oxford dictionary definition of income I have not worked the number of hours corresponding to this payment

8. I think that this payment is equivalent to a gift or an inheritance. Maybe a gift in exchange of me accepting to discontinue my claim in the ET. For example someone can offer a gift of money to someone else because he likes him or for another reason. Another example is when a landlord gives money to a tenant so that the tenant leaves his room

9. It is a one-off payment so we cannot count this as a regular income so the HB department should not have counted it in the average of my income (In the law of statistics when we calculate a median we remove any unusual value because it distort it)

10. If the HB department has the right to count it as income it should have counted it only for the month of May 2014 when I received it.

11. HB is paid every four weeks so maybe the HB department should have taken into account it only for the four weeks that I received it

12. I am self employed but this is not money from my self employment

2.

The second issue is that the HB Department did not tell me in its correspondence if it was an error from me or from them. Hence I do not know it has provided me with a proper ‘decision notice’.

3.

The third issue is that I found in this big guide that if the overpayment was caused by an official error, the overpayment is recoverable from the tenant only if he could have reasonably expected to be overpaid.

I think that it was not my fault because I informed the Housing Department when I received it and it sent me several correspondences asking me to explain the nature of this payment what I did. So it has all information in hand to take an informed decision. Hence I did not expect that there was an overpayment but how can I explain this to the HB department to convince it?

4.

The fourth issue is that the HB department has stopped to pay me my HB since the beginning of July 2015 because of this overpayment. However it sent me a letter where it says that it has decided to deduct from my housing entitlement a certain amount per week as ‘Overpayment Recovery’. Hence I would like to know if it should have complied with its decision to recover my overpayment by deducting every week a certain amount from my weekly entitlement to housing benefit. And as a consequence it should not have stopped to pay me housing benefit

issue 3 is your real argument

you should submit an appeal clearly stating that

1. you declared the payment to the council
   
2. the council decided that the payment was capital
   
3. if the payment was capital, the original decision should stand
   
4. if the payment was income, then any resulting overpayment was as a result of an official error by the council
   
5. you did not contribute to the official error or subsequent overpayment
   
6. you as a claimant could not reasonably have been expected to realise the error or that you were being overpaid
   
7. the overpayment is not recoverable
   
8. finally, the council has failed to demonstrate the grounds to revise the original awarding decision
   
9. none of the grounds for D&A reg 4(1) applies
   
10. the fact that a second decision-maker might reach a different decision based upon the facts is not a ground for revision under D&A reg 4(2)(b)
    
11. the only possible grounds for an any time revision is D&A reg 4(2)(a) therefore proving there was an official error
    

let us know what response you get - if it does proceed to tribunal - i can possibly dig up some case law to help further

Concerning my point number 1 I would like to know if there is not a law which defines what income is. I do not think that a gift of money or an inheritance is income. Hence is the amount of money that I received from my previous employer income?

Concerning my point number 4 if the HB department decided to recover the alleged overpayment by stopping to pay me my HB for several months what was the point of taking a second decision to deduct a certain amount from my weekly payment. Are not these two decisions contrary?

In the big guide to which I make reference in my previous post nowhere I have seen that the HB department has the right to stop paying HB in case of overpayment when the tenant is still entitled to receive HB. I would like to know if there is a law which give such right to the HB department.

Concerning my point number 1 I would like to know if there is not a law which defines what income is. I do not think that a gift of money or an inheritance is income. Hence is the amount of money that I received from my previous employer income?

Hello there.

Others here know more than I do, but my understanding is that if you have a capital sum, there is a calculation that converts it to an equivalent in weekly/monthly income.

HB

Here are links from the CAB and Merton council.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/help-if-on-a-low-income/help-with-your-rent-housing-benefit/

http://www.merton.gov.uk/advice-benefits/benefits/hb-ctb/benefitsclaim/hbctbsavings.htm

HB

“Others here know more than I do, but my understanding is that if you have a capital sum, there is a calculation that converts it to an equivalent in weekly/monthly income”

This is an important point. However I have done searches in the Internet and I have found nothing about the fact that amounts of money received as inheritance or as money from lottery should be converted automatically into monthly income. Hence I would like to know if some of yours have some information about this issue for example which law deals with this issue

It is an important point because if the amount of money that I have received could not be income there is no need to deal with the issue of whether it is was an error from the HB department or from me and whether or not I could have expected to be overpaid

It remains also the other issue about whether or not the HB department was allowed to stop my HB because of this alleged overpayment or should have it deducted from my HB the amount of money that it has decided to deduct

I would like to know if there is a law which allows the HB department to stop paying HB in case of overpayment or it has to deduct an amount from the HB as overpayment recovery but has to carry on paying it because the claimant carries on having to pay his rent?. Moreover if the HB department sends a letter to the claimant saying that it has decided to deduct an amount from the weekly HB as recovery overpayment has it the right to change its mind and decide to stop to pay HB entirely to recover the overpayment quicker in this way?

I think you need to tell us the whole story to get accurate advice

Hello again.

I've merged your two threads to keep the information together.

HB

Broadly speaking no, they cannot simply stop your ongoing benefit in order to recover an overpayment faster. HB may be suspended to prevent further overpayments, but this should be a temporary measure while the correct ongoing rate (less any overpayment recovery deductions) is calculated. You can find information about HB overpayment recovery here.

I would like to know if there is a law which allows the HB department to stop paying HB in case of overpayment or it has to deduct an amount from the HB as overpayment recovery but has to carry on paying it because the claimant carries on having to pay his rent?. Moreover if the HB department sends a letter to the claimant saying that it has decided to deduct an amount from the weekly HB as recovery overpayment has it the right to change its mind and decide to stop to pay HB entirely to recover the overpayment quicker in this way?

Wow ... You don't seem to have much luck with renting properties, nor now with housing benefit (or P45's, or court bundles, or resitting exams......)

I can see HB (Honeybee) has already done some "thread merging", but does this one need further merging with

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?438565-To-receive-a-reply-to-my-application-for-backdating-before-going-before-a-tribunal&p=4634267#post4634267

too?

SabreSheep says

“I think you need to tell us the whole story to get accurate advice”

However I have said the maximum that I can specially in my first post which is very long.

Concerning my previous thread about HB I think that it should not be merged with this new one because it is a different matter.

What has happened is that sometime ago the council already stopped my HB for several months and I had to make an application for backdating as explained in my previous thread. Finally the council accepted that I was right and paid me back my HB.

However what has happened is that my council has again stopped my HB for several months this time because of this issue of alleged overpayment. I have posted this new thread to receive enough information to convince my council again that I am right

Hi,

Are you referring to the tariff income? Being the interest that they assume you get - £1 per £250 (or part thereof) per week?

If they have treated your capital as capital & then applied tariff income, have they then done a diminishing capital calculation?

I am not referring to the tariff income this is a different matter

However they have applied the tariff income to my capital but I do not know if they have done a diminishing capital calculation because of the alleged overpayment. I need to look in my documents but if they have not done it and they do it now this will diminish the amount decreased by the tariff income by only £10 or £15 per week what will diminish the amount overpaid only by a small amount

The Council has replied to my request to reconsider its decision that I have about £3000 overpayment. It says that it has reconsidered its decision and has decreased my overpayment from about £3000 to about £1000. The Council to justify its decision has put forward complicated calculations and I have some difficulties to be sure that the new amount of about £1000 that the Council put forward is the correct amount of my overpayment

The Council has already decreased my overpayment from about £5000 to about £3000 in reply to one of my previous request for reconsideration.

The Council told me that I have to make another request for reconsideration because it has taken a new decision. This is lasting now for a long time and I would to know if some of you know what I can say to the Council so that it cancels this overpayment for good.

You can only appeal if the decision is either because the law has been incorrectly applied or the facts were incorrect. Do either apply?

I think that it is a request for reconsideration that I have to do but not yet an appeal unless I am mistaken. I think that the law was not applied correctly as I explained in my first post.

you can ask for a reconsideration or you can appeal straight away, it is your choice

have you done either yet? as you normally have one month from date of decision to request either

I prefer to make a request for reconsideration before making an appeal if necessary

because this gives me more two chances to have this decision cancelled.

The deadline to make a request for reconsideration is the end of the month

I am going to make this request today

I need to be sure what to tell to the Council so that it stops this case which lasts for a long time

what date was the decision?

The decision was taken at the end of November 2015. I have made my request to reconsider this new decision and I am waiting the reply from the Council. However if I have additional evidence in my favour to put to the Council it would be good for me