Pension Credit Overpayment

Has anyone come across a case where a claimant has received notification following an occupational pension not being included in his Pension Credit claim for over 10 years. The claimant states that he is unsure what was said when he claimed 10 years ago but it has come to light following a renewal where he was asked if he had any pensions.
The claimant states he doesnt see this as income but would not have answered no had he been previously ask.
Has anyone had a case like this or have any advice as he is being pursued for over £7000.

Thanks

“The client doesnt see this as income” ? What did he think it was then?

Every year he would have received a letter (uprating letter)from the Pension service showing a breakdown of his needs allowance and also his income so that the difference of PC could be worked out. It clearly states that if this information is incorrect he must inform them immediately, which he obviously appears to have not done.

Also bear in mind there may be a council tax and/ or housing benefit overpayment as well here.

Without knowing of any exceptional circumstances i dont see how he can get out of this overpayment. Ignorance is no excuse unfortunately.

He will need to negotiate with debt management a repayment plan. I doubt that asking for 7 grand in one go is reasonable, since the overpayment occurred over such a long period.

Same goes for housing/council tax overpayment if there is one.

I would tend to appeal to try and ascertain if any disclosure was submitted between date of claim and date of the PS finding this out.

Generally, I have found in Pension Credit cases the Claimants have submitted everything and more at the outset of the claim including bank statements.

As alot of private pensions are in payment before PC, and do often appear on the bank statements.

In the past, I had a case very similar, the client had provided full disclosure and had done some on 2 further occasions (by submitting bank statements) but the Pension Service did not realise for some years. The PS accepted it was an official error and did not recover o/p.  In that case claimant did have a number of pensions plus a partner working plus savings and one pension was missed.

Alot depends on facts of the case and disclosure. 

benefitsadviser - 15 April 2014 12:08 PM

“The client doesnt see this as income” ? What did he think it was then?

Every year he would have received a letter (uprating letter)from the Pension service showing a breakdown of his needs allowance and also his income so that the difference of PC could be worked out. It clearly states that if this information is incorrect he must inform them immediately, which he obviously appears to have not done.

Also bear in mind there may be a council tax and/ or housing benefit overpayment as well here.

Without knowing of any exceptional circumstances i dont see how he can get out of this overpayment. Ignorance is no excuse unfortunately.

He will need to negotiate with debt management a repayment plan. I doubt that asking for 7 grand in one go is reasonable, since the overpayment occurred over such a long period.

Same goes for housing/council tax overpayment if there is one.

 

I think it’s important to see all the evidence before coming to a view about this.  Unfortunately, about the only way one gets to see all the evidence is by appealing against the overpayment (and of course initially requesting Mandatory Reconsideration first).

It is quite possible that a declaration of an occupational pension was overlooked by DWP - I have just had such case for client with over £20,000 overpayment declared non-recoverable on revision by DWP after we appealed (client wrote to notify award of an occupational pension and DWP now admit they just filed the letter!). 

Even if the pension as not disclosed, the OP may have ben incorrectly calculated by DWP.  for example, the end date may be after the date DWP was aware, are there any underpayments of PC to be offset?  Also the decision making may be flawed which means no Op is recoverable (though DWP MAY be able to rectify this) - for example a failure to correctly revise and also to notify the client about the revision of the decision awarding PC.

I deal with a lot of overpayments and over 90% are incorrect in at least one regard and my instinct is to appeal the lot unless there are unusual, compelling reasons not to.

NMN - obviously our posts were submitted before we could see each others’.  I agree with your analysis.

I know that the DWP (inc PS) get this wrong all the time regarding income details.

My reasoning was that the post said he didnt regard the private pension as income so i assumed (perhaps wrongly) that maybe he didnt declare it?

Can the pension service use the content in the annual uprating letters as a stick to bash him with regarding accuracy of amount awarded in the PC claim if he DID declare it, and they messed up?

I know our local authority do so regarding HB award letters unfortunately

I still think an appeal should be done for the reasons outlined by Neil

“....my instinct is to appeal the lot unless there are unusual, compelling reasons not to”. 

I would agree, particularly as the DWP can make such a dog’s breakfast of overpayment cases.  But, the claimant’s evidence, on its face, in this case would worry me.

Thirded (or fourthed?)

I’ve had a batch of ‘undeclared occupational pension’ PC overpayments in the past year or two and I think all bar two of them were revised in favour of the client early on. Of the other two, one was revised in part just after the appeal was listed to be heard and the remainder was clearly hopeless (I advised the client to withdraw the appeal) and the other attended a (successful) oral hearing. There’s very often evidence of disclosure at the PS end either at the time of the original claim or at some point during the subsequent overpayment period but unless the decision is challenged they won’t properly review everything (in my experience it is often at the stage when someone has to compile the appeal bundle that the decision is changed).

I expect we’ve all had experience of pensioner clients who don’t consider their occupational pension is income (‘I worked all my life and paid in for this so it doesn’t count’ etc). It’s up there with capital that doesn’t count because it’s ‘funeral money’. However, as the OP says, it doesn’t necessarily mean the pension wasn’t mentioned at some stage.

Definitely worth challenging anyhow.

Have had many, many cases like this. I would disregard the claimants view of his income. It’s only relevant if he didn’t make a disclosure and even then arguably not so. Starting point is they’re pursuing this over a long period. So, let’s see that claim pack then please. Oh, and all the stuff inbetween too please. And of course we’ll be wanting to make sure that all relevant decisions have been revised accordingly before anyone started pursuing recoverability. And those decisions! They will of course match exactly the claims and renewals in the appeal papers won’t they? There won’t be any odd gaps will there? Like gaps that might just show when the claimant disclosed.

Then there’s the plain simple point of why he would suddenly disclose now and not for all these years. Generally speaking people don’t have a view of their income that suddenly changes unless some information was given to them that changed that view. So, what changed? If nothing did, then non-disclosure at the outset tends to be viewed as highly unlikely by tribunals.

With o/p that date back 10 years with regards to non disclosure of Occupational pensions I often feel that the process of transferring people from IS to GPC in a rushed manner is one of the main reasons that o/p have occurred. 

We have had a number of clients that can remember the Pension Service visiting them around 2003 to ‘help’ with the transfer process.  Many of them has occupational pensions in payment at the time and state that they had provided bank statements or ‘pass books’ to the visiting officer at the time.  It appears that often that the Occupational pension was not picked up on the statements. 

The problem is that after 10 years it becomes increasingly difficult to produce the bank statement or pass book that was provided to the Pension service at the time of the visit. 

Has anyone else found a number of problems with IS to GPC transfers in the 2003 period?

IS to MIG. MIG to PC. Pretty much the same each time. Exactly as you describe and that’s why the initial claim pack is crucial.

Have lost count of the number of times a claimant says “Well that bit’s my handwriting but that bit isn’t!”. You then find the bit at the end, supposedly signed when someone else has completed the form, mysteriously blank. DWP et al often deny the writing is different. I’ve only brought in a handwriting expert once… but they remembered it in future cases funnily enough.

Also true to say that it’s often at that exact point that a claimants view of their income is set in stone. Form completed by staffer; pension details handed over; treated dismissively or put to one side. Creates an impression of relevance that lasts. Have had at least one case though where the claimant had a vivid memory of exactly what was said and it was very telling!

We had a similar case.  Our client was adamant that he had provided information when occupational pensions came into payment.  The client was even able to provide the dates, several years ago, on which he had telephoned PS.  PS still insisted that they hadn’t been told.  The client eventually submitted a formal appeal against the o/p decision.  One month later PS inform him that they have listened to the tapes for the relevant dates and confirm that they received the information.  O/p decision revised.

Makes one wonder why they didn’t play the tapes in the first place.

There appears to be a lot of these SPC O/P cases recently . I concur with all the above - never concede until you have seen the case papers if for no other reason than the DWP calculations are more often than not incorrect .  Don’t forget to check the Regulations re : transfer from MIG to SPC and the effect of Assessed Income Periods (AIPs) .

I have a client at the moment who the DWP are seeking to recover an overpayment of £20k plus on the basis that the client has ‘Misrepresented the material fact that she was in receipt of an occupational pension’ 

Client started to receive an occupational pension entlement in her 70’s (an estranged husband had passed away, and the client had some entlement to his pension) .  This was in the year 2000.

The client had been in receipt of MIG and then transferred to PC in 2003. 

The DWP are seeking recovery for only the period of the PC claim and not the MIG claim. 

The appeal bundle has included an Income Support A2 form from 2001.  This appears to have not been completed by the client with a big X being added next to the declaration suggesting the client was asked to sign the form by the pension service or a 3rd party, having had assistance with completing. 

The A2 shows that the Occupational Pension was not declared in 2001.  It would appear a clear misrepresentation at that stage. 

However, I am wondering if I could look at the fact that the DWP have not provided any pension Credit renewal forms, INF4’s or decision letters in the appeal bundle for the period 2003-2014. 

Would I be able to argue that there was no misrepresentation / failure to disclose on the Pension Credit claim on this basis? 

I feel I may be clutching on straws because of the inclusion of the A2 form

Just a thought, but when did the client actually first start to receive the pension? I mention it because there’s not infrequently a delay- sometimes quite a significant one- between the point where the pension becoming payable and actually going into payment. I had a client with a similar scenario where the gap was a good 4 months (which just happened to coincide with her completing an A2 form where the pension wasn’t mentioned because at that point it wasn’t in payment (and she had no idea she was going to be entitled to it).

Hi All,

I have just been reading the comments in this thread.
I have just seen a Cl who the DWP are seeking to recover an overpayment of £30k on the basis that the she ‘Misrepresented of the material fact that she was in receipt of an occupational pension’

Cl doesn’t remember making a claim for PC, she said that she was simply transferred over.  So I am assuming she was previously receiving MIG. I am about to assist Cl with an appeal.  Was anyone successful? If so, do you have any tips when appealing?

Cl is 89 and the DWP scared her half to death, what with them visiting her at her home and interviewing her.

Any further information would be a great help. 
Thanks.