Full HB/CTB in payment to client until she rang Council to tell them her AA being reviewed. They did a quick phone review of benefits and she declared that no PC in payment as it was stopped 2 weeks after her husband died 2 years ago.
Visitor sent, discovered even if AA stops still has PC entitlement and some HB/CTB entitlement too.
Council raised an overpayment and said they intend to offset overpayment against underpayment after including 12 month backdating.
? Are there any grounds to discuss/challenge the overpayment that as the reason Pension Credit stopped was because she was widowed and hadn't realised to contact Council with change in circumstances? Pension Credit section and Council were/are connected electronically so the end date of PC should have been received by the council at the time.

i expect there are grounds to dispute, but am finding the information confusing. can you clarify position regarding entitlement to pension credit (guarantee), and what happened regarding any pension credit entitlement in her own right, on death of husband?

If they were jointly liable for CTax you would have expected the CTax department to have picked up on the death of the husband and amended the CTax bill accordingly. I would have expected that if this were the case, CTax would have notified HB of the death of the husband for them to amend the claim accordingly?
She should have been getting a Single Person Discount for the last couple of years. If she has been getting a SPD, surely there will be some sort of argument that the LA were aware of the death of the husband based on this?

Thanks, yes, I could have been much clearer, I'll re-write what I know, if either of you has another few minutes It'd be a help!

no problem sandra. : )
it sounds as if something maybe went wrong with her benefits around the time her husband died, so it will be a help if we can narrow it down.
sometimes establishing what went wrong is the quickest way to put it right - and after 2 years it might be messy. the pensions service were obviously notified of husband's death, and i would expect her pension credit entitlement to be considered at that time. you're saying she had pension credit entitlement, but no award? was any kind of decision notified to her? are you talking about guarantee credit entitlement or savings credit entitlement? if you're not sure, maybe you can state her income/capital position at the time of her widowhood/change in circumstances.