Hello everyone

Could you help with a problem we have, we are being threaten with court action because Social Services paid one of our tenants rent for over a year by mistake, they are demanding £3500 overpayment back, we were not aware our tenant was being overpaid and took these payments in goodfaith, if we are forced to repay this amount it will put our tenants tenancy in jeopardy.

Any suggestion

Thank you

Presumably the tenant can claim Housing Benefit? If so, bung in a claim now along with a backdating request - shouldn't be too difficult for the claimant to show good cause for a late claim if everyone thought they were entitled to SSD payments when they actually weren't.

Then, when the backdated HB has come through, you can refund Social Services.

Admittedly, this will only help for a maximum of 12 months - in which case there would surely be grounds for asking SSD to write off the residue.