Client has received a letter from Eversheds debt collection agency for repayment of £19,814.23 owed to the DWP. After querying this with the DWP we have been informed that it is an Income Support overpayment from prior to 2005 but cannot confirm what caused the overpayment, how it has been calculated or if the client was prosecuted. They have requested the client’s file but so far it has not arrived from their remote filing.

Client is not currently having deductions from benefit for an overpayment; does this mean that if an overpayment is referred to a private debt collection agency no deductions can be made from ongoing benefit? If this is the case then would you advice the client that it is to be treated as any other non-priority debt, i.e. nominal offer based on available income the overpayment is accepted?

Would this also mean that we could argue statute of limitations if it is over 6 years old? My feeling with this is that if this applied Eversheds could return it to the DWP and deductions could then be applied.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

At Debt Management liaison meeting in Salford I attended earlier this year (or last year?) I am sure we were told that these firms were only used to recover overpayments from people no longer on benefit and then only after the person would have received at least 4 letters from the Debt Management Centre (DMC).

They may have been used if your client was off benefits when recovery started or if DWP couldn't trace them I suppose but I thought the procedure was for the alleged overpayment to be referred back to the DMC if the firm found that the person was on benefit.

If your client knows nothing about this alleged o/p then maybe the DMC have referred it to Eversheds knowing they would have difficulty recovering it themselves (e.g. if the paperwork is missing and they would have difficulty proving it in front of a tribunal). Sounds a bit of a big o/p for DWP to be trying a speculative punt but who knows. I wouldn't be advising any rate or method of repayment until you were convinced (either from DWP decision letters or from your client) that the o/p is correct and all relevant decisions have been made and correctly notified. Is your client completely in the dark about this overpayment?

Does the letter from Eversheds (a very big firm of solicitors) refer to any decision, either about overpayemnt or entitlement?

Has your client ever appealed about an overpayment decision?

Has your client moved in the last few years?

I'd agree that the first thing is to see if your client has ever had anything about a past period of benefit claim. People often don't appeal a simple revision of entitlement decision - it's only when the overpayment decision arrives that they get worried. If by any chance they revised or superseded (or didn't as the case may be) a previous award of ebenfit, and then forgot about issuing an overpayment decision, it might account for it.

Limitations do not apply to recovery under s 71 of the Social Security Administration Act. Neither do they apply where the creditor has other methods of recovery available to him than suing in the courts - eg, recovery from current benefits.They do for so-called common-law recovery, which does mean using the courts. Does the letter say what they intend to do about it if your client says yah boo sucks?