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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Housing costs  →  Thread

Housing benefit- overpayment caused by both official error and relevant person

Chris Jones Age UKBG
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Welfare Benefits Officer Age UK Bromley and Greenwich

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In this instance is an overpayment considered recoverable because it is partially caused by a relevant person? The vast majority of the overpayment has been caused by official error and only a small proportion by the relevant person. Does the fact that official error was not the exclusive cause of the overpayment mean that the overpayment cannot be considered at all to be caused by official error? Apologies if this has been previously discussed- I am new to this.

Edmund Shepherd
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Tenancy Income, Royal Borough of Greenwich, London

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Was it due to reporting a change of circumstances late? If payment of benefit continued after your client told DWP (for example) about a change and DWP failed to act on it, an overpayment is unlikely to be recoverable from the date it was reported.

Can you share the detail of the circumstances of your client?

Chris Jones Age UKBG
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Welfare Benefits Officer Age UK Bromley and Greenwich

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The overpayment is for about £12k and it dates back to 2009.  The client was in receipt of Incapacity Benefit and an Occupational Pension. The vast majority of the overpayment was caused by the LA incorrectly applying IB of £1.72/ other tiny figures to the client’s claim until this was corrected in 2013. A much smaller overpayment occurred because the client did not tell them every year about the increases to her occ pen. She did however provide a letter from her pension provider at the outset of her claim which stated “where applicable, with effect from 06/04/2009, an annual pension increase rate of 5% is applied”, so she did notify the LA of the likelihood of increases to her occ pen.

I hope that clarifies. Can it be argued that because the vast majority of the overpayment was caused by official error (something acknowledged by LA) that the amount caused by the relevant person should be considered in isolation from it? Can it be argued that she did notify the LA of increases to her occ pen by referring to the letter from her pension provider at the outset of her claim?

Many thanks for any input

past caring
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Welfare Rights Adviser - Southwark Law Centre, Peckham

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You have two hurdles to cross;

1. In regard to the ‘largest’ portion of the o/p, the fact that it may have been caused by official error is not the end of the story. Even where the cause is official error, the overpayment is still recoverable if the claimant could reasonably have realised the amount awarded was an overpayment. So if she could reasonably have realised that the £1.72 for IB was wrong and that she should have been getting less HB as a result, the o/p would still be recoverable even though caused by LA error.

2. As regards the notifcation that the personal pension would be liable to an annual increase at the outset of the claim, that won’t cut it in terms of official error.

a) the claimant is under an obligation to notify the LA of an actual increase in their income - the thing at the outset of the claim does no more than say it may increase.

b) if the award notice shows HB being calculated on the basis of a personal pension of x per month and cl knows she is, in fact, being paid the larger sum y, then she’s under a duty to notify the LA of the actual figure.