Morning,

Am looking for some advice / guidance regarding an HB overpayment.

Overpayment relates to two joint tenants (mother and son) living in extra care accomodation. Mother is elderly with care needs, son has very severe health problems as a result of an accident.

In April 2008, mother applied for HB and was awarded this based on her circumstances. She continued to receive HB until quite recently when the son applied for HB.

Son applied for HB and at this point local authority looked at the mothers claim and realised they had awarded mothers HB on 100% of rental liability with son as a non-dep rather than awarding HB based on 50% of rent.

Result of this is a £3500 HB overpayment as LA amended mothers claim back to April 2008.

A couple of questions:

1. Even though son did not apply for HB until October 2009, he would have been eligible if he'd applied earlier. Is it worth asking local authority to consider underlying entitlement for period April 2008 to October 2009 and offsetting against overpayment?
2. The tenancy agreement clearly states it is a joint tenancy. This agreement was provided to the local authority when the mothers HB claim was submitted. Is there any mileage in going down the official error route and asking for the overpayment to be classified as unrecoverable on this basis?

The mother and son are very independent and have been trying to deal with this themselves. It's only within the last week they have asked for outside assistance and I'd like to be able to advise them as best as possible.

Any advice or guidance would be gratefully received.

Cheers

John

I'd appeal it on the basis of official error, I think, if it were me. If the LA had a copy of the joint tenancy agreement I think your clients would have a very strong case.

1) On the basis the decision is correct, at least to the extent of attributing 50/50 and the amount of overpayment, there cannot be any underlying entitlement in this case. The son doesn't have an overpayment against which U/E can be applied.

2) I agree with 1964. LA error. This means it is only recoverable if the clmt contributed to the mistake (don't think so) OR could reasonably have been expected to realise etc....


There is a further argument. Howabout one of the grounds of appeal being that there was nothing wrong with the LA attributing the joint rent as being 100:0? Nothing in the HB regs precludes this. But, for CTB, it must be 50/50.

I could see the La suggesting that your client did contribute to the overpayment if the claim form showed the son as a non-dependant and not a joint tenant. Although often the form does not prompt for the information that the La may need.

Despite the tenancy agreement, are they actually joint tenants?

What has prompted the son to claim when he did?

Any Tribunal would confirm this as La error in my experience...

I don't think there is any issue about this being LA error, from the contents of the post it looks to be clearly LA error.

The only real issue is the "realise they were being overpaid" one.

Was the level of HB the mother was receiving more than her share of the rent?