alleged overpayment "Housing Benefit"

[sean mc keever]

Anyone have any thoughts on this one.......

 

My auntie recieved a letter from Housing Benefit almost 2 months ago concerning an overpayment, letter reads

 

I am disappointed that I do not appear to have received a reply from you concerning my earlier letter concerning a House Benefit overpayment of £918.08.

 

Goes on to say that uregent attention is needed, failure to pay this amount may lead to further action, including deductions from other state benefits or legal proceeding,ect ect ect.

 

Facts

 

Auntie is 84. Purchased house from local council almost 2 years ago under "Right to Buy". Before this she rented house getting help with paying the rent (Housing Benfit) as she was in receit of Pension Credit. she lives alone.

 

She now has a mortage and gets help with payments.(Housing Benfit)

 

When she recieved the letter I phoned the council to speak to the person that had signed the letted. However they were on holiday so I spoke to someone else and pointed out that my auntie had not recieved a previous letter and could they check the state of her account. Was told that there did not appear to be any arrears on the account.

 

I though I would write to them anyway asking then to provied a compleate and comprehensive breakdown for the alleaged overpayment amount, also all copies of previous correspondence relating to the matter.

 

Two weeks later I sent another letter pointing out my disapointment that no reply had been recieved to my letter also drawing attendition to the extreme distress and concern that this had caused to my auntie as she had always conducted her affairs promptly and with transparency when dealing with the council.

 

Three days later I recieved a return letter to say that council were currently investigating the income for the period of the overpayment and would be in touch with me regarding the overpayment once this had been confirmed.

 

Its almost 7 weeks now and I havent heard a thing. My auntie is going up the walls and she is worried sick.

 

I think it is unreasonable that the council have not delt with this matter in 7 weeks

 

Should I write to the council again and what should I say.

[Rich44]

Find out what the councils complaints procedure is and follow it when/if they dont respond send an official complaint in to the LGO theyre excellent.

[sues35]

Hi

 

If there was any arrears due from before the house was purchased under the right to buy scheme it would of shown up at the time of buying as the council is not permitted to sell the house to anyone in arrears. This has to be recovered and indeed can be paid by the mortgage company and added to the mortgage.

 

Contact local MP for the area. Explain the situation and get them to investigate. This is especially good if you have a Labour local Gvmt but have a Liberal / Con local MP as they love the fight lol

 

If your Auntie is receiving HB from Department of Work and Pensions, there is a period when they do not cover the cost of the mortgage (normally 26 weeks), it is possible the council paid this for her and now needs it to be recovered. However if this recovery will cause financial hardship she may be able to fight that repayment. If your Auntie is in receipt of pension credit check out my thread in this forum for other help she may be entitled to or indeed PM me and i wil try to help as much as i can

Good luck

[rambot]

what is auntie doing taking on a mortgage at 84. secondly why is benefits paying her mortgage, or have i read this all wrong.

I nearly lost my house last year after working many many hours for 27 years and having a heart attack last year, which rendered me off work for 7 months and i could not get a copper coin, not one penny would the benfits office give me,

how come someone of 84 can get a mortgage and the benefits people pay for the cost of it.

please tell me if i have misread the thread.

[luddite]

If you're a mortgage payer, the only Housing Benefit you can get is for Council Tax. Income Support is the side that helps with mortgage payments.

[JonCris]

She can get a mortgage because of the discount which means plenty of equity.

 

She won't however be allowed to sell it for a fixed period usually 5 years without paying the council a penalty from the enhanched proceeds of sale.

 

When the property becomes part of the estate on death & it's within the fixed period the estate will still have to pay the penalty

[rambot]

i was not entitled to benefit after my heart attack last year as benefits are means tested and i was short of 2 NI contributions from the years 2002/2003. A company i worked went bust owing hundreds of thousands of pounds one week before xmas. obviously he never paid the last quarters NI and TAX payments and that alone stopped my benefits.

I have in actual fact had 2 heart attacks in ten years and both time have not been entitled to any benefit whatsoever.

can anyone tell me how that works because if i was a foreigner turning up here i would get benefit from day one.

what makes one ENTITLED to benefit.

My poor wife had to try and keep me and 3 kids on her wages of £140.00 per week and pay the mortgage, the first time,

the second time was even worse.

[JonCris]

That sounds appalling. Did you seek benefit advice form your local CAB

[sues35]

Hi

Re benefits you should of been fofered the chance to pay the outstanding NI contributions in order for you to be able to claim sickness benefit. Are you still off work sick? Do you get benefits now?

 

Re foriegner with the recent influx of polish there is only 18% claiming benefit with the rest taking up jobs that were already available to british ppl but who chose not to take the job.

 

However in your case there is a real reason why you cannot work (if you are not working) and you are entitled to help if youhave 3 children and your wife only brings home 140.00 per week. See your local CAB or you can PM me with details and i will help you claim whats rightfully yours.

 

Sue

[tracy4334]

Hi,

I am a single mother of 4 and work 18 hours per week at an hourly rate of (£5.58 per hour since April). I recieve working tax credits and child tax credits. I also have recently been charged an overpayment of housing benefit of £835 and council tax of over £200. This overpayment only goes back till December. I have been in the council 4 times in the past 2 weeks and nobody can tell me how or why i have this overpayment. I have been told that the way the council work out your rebate is with 2 of my 4 weekly wage slips, my tax credit award letter and child benefit. I informed the tax credits that my contracted hours changed from 16 hrs to 18 hrs weekly in December and also took my new award letter to the council. There was barely even a change in the amount of tax credits i had previously recieved. I have worked overtime since December to approx £600, but as they only have recieved my May and June wage slips, this still does not explain this massive overpayment. The woman at the council told me that basically you can earn as much as you like for 4 months and only work basic hours for 2 months before your 6 monthly review and they don`t look at total earnings to date (unless you earn thousands extra, then they may look at earnings to date, i wish i had have know this beforehand), they only work from the 2 wage slips provided. I am still baffled ( and they seem to be to) at how they got to the figures they have shown me for entiltement and overpayment, the main reason for being baffled is if this is the way they work out your benefit then how when they have only recieved my May and June pay slips and my tax credits have barely changed can they provide me with exact figures like this-

 

Start Date End Date No of Days Entiltement Before / After Overpayment

12/12/05 18/12/05 7 £51.81 £34.40 £17.41

19/12/05 15/01/06 28 £51.81 £34.62 £68.76

16/01/06 12/02/06 28 £51.81 £00.53 £205.12

13/03/06 31/03/06 47 £51.81 £01.11 £340.41

1/04/06 2/04/06 2 £51.81 £01.11 £14.48

3/04/06 16/04/06 14 £59.02 £37.77 £42.50

17/04/06 14/05/06 28 £54.24 £22.63 £146.44

 

This is only my housing benefit overpayment until 14/5/06, not to date and not my council tax overpayment.

Any advice/help in this matter would be most appreciated, and to the person that started this topic, i would keep doing what your doing and query everything until you get some real answers. I think they are still working on a very old system that obviously does not work and many mistakes can easily happen.

I have appealed against this overpayment to the council, only to be told they cannot deal with my appeal and i have to appeal to an independant something or other which i am in the process of doing. I have 12 days left to submit this 2nd appeal and i am allowed to supply supporting evidence so i don`t want to submit it until this has been explained more clearly and in detail to me and i have something to add to the appeal rather than them just recieving the same figures that i have recieved with no indepth explanation of why this overpayment occurred. I have struggled over the last couple of years to get my head above water and last year i cleared all my rent arrears and council tax and was really chuffed i had got there only to get hit with this now. I went into the job centre last week and they worked out all my finances for me and it turns out i am £36 per week WORSE OFF working than i would be on benefits because of this overpayment. I am not going to give up my job as i have worked hard to progress over the years, so any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Cheers Tracy

[Margie]

Hi Tracy

You need to get some independent advice with this and help/representation at your appeal hearing.

It's difficult to comment on cases without having full details. However, any increase in your income automatically affects the help you get through council tax rebate and rent rebate (housing benefit). If you gave the information on any increases into your local housing benefit office in good time and they took a long time to deal with the changes you may have a good argument at appeal.

Housing Benefit/Council Tax appeals are handled by the Tribunal Service. Your local authority will prepare their case for asking for the payments back and send it to you and the appeals service. You will receive a TAS1 form with this appeal bundle that MUST be returned to the relevent appeals service office within 14 days (you will get a pre-paid envelope with the bundle and form). After the appeals service get the bundle they will set a date for tribunal. Housing Benefit appeals are heard by a legally qualified member sitting on their own.

Seek detailed advice from your local Advice Centre or CAB.

 

Good luck

Margie

[Margie]

i was not entitled to benefit after my heart attack last year as benefits are means tested and i was short of 2 NI contributions from the years 2002/2003. A company i worked went bust owing hundreds of thousands of pounds one week before xmas. obviously he never paid the last quarters NI and TAX payments and that alone stopped my benefits.

I have in actual fact had 2 heart attacks in ten years and both time have not been entitled to any benefit whatsoever.

can anyone tell me how that works because if i was a foreigner turning up here i would get benefit from day one.

what makes one ENTITLED to benefit.

My poor wife had to try and keep me and 3 kids on her wages of £140.00 per week and pay the mortgage, the first time,

the second time was even worse.

 

Hi rambot

I sympathise with your position, and would suggest that you seek advice as soon as possible - you may be able to put in a claim for Disability Living Allowance if the after effects of your heart attack still impact on your ability to walk and self care.

If your wife is still employed you should be getting help with Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits.

Go to your local advice centre or CAB as soon as you can

[tracy4334]

Thanks Margie for your advice, i am waiting to hear form the council to have another meeting from them to see if they have managed to find someone that can explain this overpayment in detail.

I did not inform the council of my overtime at the time but the figures still do not add up. I am aware i will have some sort of overpayment but this amount is ludicrous as i only earned about £600 overtime. I feel i have worked the overtime for nothing and i owe hundreds more on top. The 2 wage slips i provided the council with did have overtime on them, but it still doesn`t explain where they got the exact figures for the dates they did not have pay slips for.

 

Thanks again for your advice and if i get it sorted i will keep you informed.

Cheers Tracy

[drummer]

Good luck Tracy.My partner is swimming in similar water right now.I ll get any relevant info for you when I see her later.As I m here, does anyone know if a long-term council tenant[20yrs] loses her right to tenancy when her last child leaves home if the council want her 3 bed house for a family again?She is unsure about spending time/dosh on more improvements{council won t/don t]She will be the sole occupier soon,and thinks they might move her to wherever they want.Nobody at local council level seems sure.A BIG thank you to all you.

[drummer]

sorry, I should have started new thread, sorry

[tracy4334]

Hi drummer,

Thanks for your reply, as to your question, i am really sure that the council have no rights to move your partner out of her present home even though her kids have grown up and have flown the nest. There is a woman just outside my street that had 2 boys, 1 of which is now grown up and left home and the other 1 was disabled and unfortunaltey passed away a few years ago under the age of 16. This woman had been given disability accomadation due to her son`s illness many years ago and the council have no rights to move her back into mainstream accomadation even though she lives in a 3 bedroom disability property on her own now. I would still maybe go to your local C A B and find out for fact for her own piece of mind.

Cheers Tracy

[JonCris]

My view differs. I believe provided the council offer accomodation of a simular standard they can rehouse a tenant for reasons of social need if they want to. But as has already been said go to the local CAB & get advice

[gizmo111]

Hi drummer,

Thanks for your reply, as to your question, i am really sure that the council have no rights to move your partner out of her present home even though her kids have grown up and have flown the nest. There is a woman just outside my street that had 2 boys, 1 of which is now grown up and left home and the other 1 was disabled and unfortunaltey passed away a few years ago under the age of 16. This woman had been given disability accomadation due to her son`s illness many years ago and the council have no rights to move her back into mainstream accomadation even though she lives in a 3 bedroom disability property on her own now. I would still maybe go to your local C A B and find out for fact for her own piece of mind.

Cheers Tracy

 

I beleive that she will now be considered overhoused and the local authority coiuld move her to a property that is suitable for her needs only - however I would approach Shelter and ask their advice.

[tom3131]

Verify that she was in fact over paid, if so, over to pay it back, at thwat your aunty can afford, if this is 50p a week, so be it..

If your aunty offers topay back what she can afford and the council refuse it, then they would be acting "unreasonable" in the view of a court.

 

Regards,

Tom3131.

[gizmo111]

Verify that she was in fact over paid, if so, over to pay it back, at thwat your aunty can afford, if this is 50p a week, so be it..

If your aunty offers topay back what she can afford and the council refuse it, then they would be acting "unreasonable" in the view of a court.

 

Regards,

Tom3131.

 

The OP never replied but aunty has a mortgage and therfore would not have been entitled to HB anyway