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Top Housing Benefit & Council Tax Benefit topic #9237

Subject: "CTB overpayment - help needed" First topic | Last topic
joannah
                              

Welfare Benefiys Specialist, Toynbee Hall
Member since
18th Dec 2009

CTB overpayment - help needed
Thu 06-May-10 03:19 PM

Hi there

I have requested a review of a CTB decision quoting HB Regulations 2006, No. 214, reg 27 (para 7&8) but now the Council has written back saying the overpayment is a result of claimant error.

My client is 81 and when her husband passed away in Feb 05 she claimed PC. A week after claiming she found a savings book showing savings her late husband had never told her about of over £16K. Her adviser called PC and were told that it did not matter as she was in an assessed income period. She did not claim CTB when her husband died as her adviser told her that she had too much savings, she receives savings credit only, state pension and her late husbands occupational pension. In Dec 06 a council visiting officer who had been told that she was in receipt of PC came to her home to make an application for CTB, they had the lower figure of under £16K of when she first claimed PC and used this during the apparent claim and did not ask for proof during the visit or anytime after. In Feb'10 my client completed her annual review form and put her savings down (more than £16K) and as a result this created an overpayment of over £3K from Dec 06 to date.

My client cannot even remember the council visit to make the CTB claim and this overpayment is a real worry to her.

What else can I argue? She is too frail to attend an appeal and would rather just pay it off.

Thanks in advance
Jo

  

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Replies to this topic
RE: CTB overpayment - help needed, stainsby, 07th May 2010, #1
RE: CTB overpayment - help needed, joannah, 07th May 2010, #2
      RE: CTB overpayment - help needed, stainsby, 07th May 2010, #5
RE: CTB overpayment - help needed, Rosessdc, 07th May 2010, #3
RE: CTB overpayment - help needed, joannah, 07th May 2010, #4
      RE: CTB overpayment - help needed, Rosessdc, 07th May 2010, #6
           RE: CTB overpayment - help needed, joannah, 07th May 2010, #7
           RE: CTB overpayment - help needed, stainsby, 07th May 2010, #8
                RE: CTB overpayment - help needed, joannah, 07th May 2010, #9
                     RE: CTB overpayment - help needed, joannah, 17th May 2010, #10

stainsby
                              

Welfare Benefits Officer, Gallions Housing Association, Thamesmead SE London
Member since
22nd Jan 2004

RE: CTB overpayment - help needed
Fri 07-May-10 11:11 AM

First of all get a copy of the CTB claim form to see exactly how the question about savings was answered.

You need to get as much infooration as possible about the circumstances surrounding the completiion of that form because the Council will first of all be arguing that there was no official error, and depending on what is on the form, they will argue that your client misrepresented a fact.

Did your client offer to show the Council officer any bank statements (showing >£16k savings) for example? You could then argue that any written misrpresentation on the form had been qualified (see R(SB)18/85, and if the claim form turns out to be incomplete CIS/5117/1998)

You then need to go on to argue that the Council officer had neglected to ask the correct questions re savings and that the negligence amounted to an official error.

Given that there is an assessed income period in pension credit, the question of whether your client could reasonably be expected to realise she was being overpaid is the easy part. The hard part is refuting the inevitable accusation of misrepresentation, and then qoing on to successfully argue that there was an official error on the part of the council

  

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joannah
                              

Welfare Benefiys Specialist, Toynbee Hall
Member since
18th Dec 2009

RE: CTB overpayment - help needed
Fri 07-May-10 11:14 AM

Thank you - if she cannot remember (as she didn't even recall the visit, I got this info from CTB) and the CTB form was completed in full, do I have a leg to stand on?

  

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stainsby
                              

Welfare Benefits Officer, Gallions Housing Association, Thamesmead SE London
Member since
22nd Jan 2004

RE: CTB overpayment - help needed
Fri 07-May-10 11:23 AM

You might have one leg, but you certainly dont have two legs here.

Claim forms usually have several spaces re bank accounts ISA's etc, and if the pages are in any way incomplete or have notes attached such as "Savings £X from AIF.", then you have a glimmer of a case, but you still have to show that the council officer made an error that amounted to an officiel error

  

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Rosessdc
                              

Welfare Benefits Advisor, South Somerset District Council
Member since
24th Jul 2007

RE: CTB overpayment - help needed
Fri 07-May-10 11:20 AM

Having worked in a Benefits unit before crossing over to the light I can imagine how this occurred. Part of a Benefits units remit is to encourage takeup, so if a pension credit printout shows that someone should be entitled to ctb they will contact that person and assist them to claim. As the pensions service have verified income and capital it is not considered necessary to check these. I think it is highly unlikely that your client was even asked the questions, so cannot have contibuted to the error. You need to see the application form she signed though, as these vary.
Our authority had forms that did not require any detail of income or capital if you were in receipt of PC,IS etc. If this is the case then how could there be claimant error?

  

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joannah
                              

Welfare Benefiys Specialist, Toynbee Hall
Member since
18th Dec 2009

RE: CTB overpayment - help needed
Fri 07-May-10 11:23 AM

Thanks, I will get a copy of the form right away. Are there any HB guidance manuals on what info the visiting officer has to obtain/compliance etc?

  

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Rosessdc
                              

Welfare Benefits Advisor, South Somerset District Council
Member since
24th Jul 2007

RE: CTB overpayment - help needed
Fri 07-May-10 11:32 AM

Don't think so - just sent out with instructions to get claim form completed and obtain necessary proofs. In this case I think the only proof necessary would be proof of I.D. If as I suspect the form did not detail income and capital the only stumbling block would be the notification of award, which should contain all figures used in the calculation. These aren't too difficult to get past though, as legislation dictates that they contain so much information they can be a nightmare to make sense of.

  

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joannah
                              

Welfare Benefiys Specialist, Toynbee Hall
Member since
18th Dec 2009

RE: CTB overpayment - help needed
Fri 07-May-10 11:52 AM

Thanks everyone - will let you know how I go!

  

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stainsby
                              

Welfare Benefits Officer, Gallions Housing Association, Thamesmead SE London
Member since
22nd Jan 2004

RE: CTB overpayment - help needed
Fri 07-May-10 11:54 AM

The LA may argue that under Reg 59(7)(c) of the CTB( Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006, your client has a duty to report "any change in the amount of capital to be taken into account which does or may take the amount of his capital to more than £16000"

It will be easy to counter that argument because the duty is only to notify changes which take place "at any time between the making of a claim and a decision being made on it, or during an award of council tax benefit." In your clients case, the change took place before the claim was made.

The whole issue rests on that of mirepresentation by your client or official error by the council

In CH/3679/2002 the commisioner accepted that the councils failure to update its forms in line with changes in legislation was an official error. It is therefore strongly arguable that using a form which does not ask the right questions about savings is equally an official error

  

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joannah
                              

Welfare Benefiys Specialist, Toynbee Hall
Member since
18th Dec 2009

RE: CTB overpayment - help needed
Fri 07-May-10 11:55 AM

Great!

  

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joannah
                              

Welfare Benefiys Specialist, Toynbee Hall
Member since
18th Dec 2009

RE: CTB overpayment - help needed
Mon 17-May-10 03:46 PM

I have now received the application form (if you can call it that!) and it doesn't even ask about savings, only pension credit income! It's only on her review form in Jan 10 that savings are mentioned.

Thanks
Jo

  

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Top Housing Benefit & Council Tax Benefit topic #9237First topic | Last topic