I should know the answer to this but I am not having a good day.....

Secario is client never declared ownership of a 2nd property to IS - They found out and removed entitlement plus raised an overpayment due to excess capital for past 4 years.

He had IUC but no further action apart from overpayment.

As far as I can see they never valued the property - he might just have an entitlement now at current value less 10% sale costs less mortgage. Also rental profit negligible now given current rent less mortgage plus upkeep costs.

My question is - is it still possible to reduce the overpayment ( albeit only slightly ) with proof of the equity in the past or is the problem that the whole claim is an overpayment due to his non declaration? Or does this only apply in cases of fraud action?

Obviously he can make a fresh claim, taking into account the equity plus profit from rental, but what about the past overpayment?

Also (as is common) he never declared his rental to HMRC so did not keep accounts - hence impossible to know what his profit (if any) actually was apart from a guess. I have told him that he needs to see an accountant to do his accounts from 2006 when he bought the property plus advise on any likely action from HMRC due to non declaration in the past.

Has anyone any experience of these type of cases? Was my advice to see an accountant correct? I am not willing to wade through his vague receipts plus reams of mortgage statements to put these together for him.

Also, although I can value the equity at the point when his claim was terminated, how can I value the equity for the past 4 years given fluctuations in house prices plus his mortgage over this time?

Many thanks

if he thinks the DWP are hard, he does not want to try the revenue.. bad lad. needs an accountant asap...

OK, have they given you a full calculation? Does it include valuations of the property and confirmation of the amount outstanding on the mortgage at all stages? And have they done a diminishing capital calculation if the value has never been enormously over the relevant limit? And if not, why not? They've got software that will do it automatically and they MUST do it.

Thanks for the responses - I haven't seen the appeal papers yet as client has only appealed recently.

Will the whole claim be an overpayment due to his non declaration or might there still be scope for reducing the overpayment if the valuations etc are challenged?

Thanks!

never accept an overpayment calcualtion at face value is a good motto. Challenge everything you can challenge. And the point about the diminishing capital calculation is that he is treated as spending his capital at the rate of the overpaid benefit, and might reach a level where he would have qualified on that basis; in which case the notional entitlement must be offset against any overpayment.