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Late overpayment notice due to under occupancy reduction not being applied.

Andrea Peacock
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Housing - Endeavour Housing Association, Stockton on Tees

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Total Posts: 14

Joined: 5 December 2011

Hi there

We have just received an overpayment notice for a tenant whose HB has not had the under occupancy reduction applied from 1st April 2013, resulting in an overpayment of over £1k.

The property is stock transfer from the local authority, where social rent has been applied on a like for like basis - therefore all two bedroom properties in that particular area are the same, similarly for three bedroom properties.  It is muted therefore that the local authority ought to have known that the property was under occupied at the tim,e of the legilative change and applied the reduction then.

Your thoughts on whether you think we have a case to challenge would be appreciated - TIA

HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

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Joined: 12 March 2013

For an HB overpayment to be non-recoverable requires there to have been an official error which the claimant and/or payee could not have been expected to know about and did not contribute to.  There are three possible reasons why the Council might consider this to be a recoverable overpayment:

- they did ask pertinent questions before April 2013 and received misleading replies or no replies.  In that case they would consider that there was no error on their part or, if there was, that the claimant or payee contributed to it.  In that case the overpayment is recoverable from the person or persons responsible for misrepresenting or failing to disclose facts.  If they have directed the decision at your organisation they must think you are in the frame.

- they acknowledge that they failed to ask pertinent questions before April 2013 but they think that your organisation should have known it was being overpaid in this case from the information available to it about the property and the claimant

- they think there has been no error, it’s just an unfortunate mishap in which case the overpayment is recoverable from both the claimant and the payee.

Does the decision give any indication of which option they have gone for?  If not, the first step coud be to ask for an explanation of the reasons for the decision including an explanation of why the Council considers any overpayment to be recoverable per se and why they consider it to be recoverable from you as opposed to anyone else, backed up by references to the relevant Regs.