O/P following UC claim

I’m away from the office at the moment and don’t have access to anything. Therefore if anyone could help it would be appreciated.

Client claimed HB as no income in 2016. Then claimed UC in November 2016. Put into payment in Feb 2017 including rent element. HB continued paying rent to landlord until UC notified them of the UC claim in 2020. Client informed DWP at time of claim that was claiming HB. Now received an overpayment of £20K+. Any chance of getting this written of as official error as DWP did not notify LA?

Even if it could be classed as an official error, on what basis was your client unaware that they were being double paid HB and a housing element of UC? Further, how can you show that they didn’t contribute to the error?

Thanks Paul. On limited information, she was involved in an accident prior to this with long-lasting issues including pain and confusion. English is not her first language. She is hoping that her claim for UC should have automatically ended her HB award and the fact she declared her HB award to the JCP, means she disclosed a material fact.

That might help a bit from the HB perspective, but presumably she did receive a breakdown of the UC award which would have shown a housing element being paid - did she try to pay her landlord?  If she was hoping the UC claim would have stopped the HB award, who did she think was paying her rent?

Depending on the specific circumstances, then and now, there’s also the option to use discretion to not recover, or reduce recovery.

She assumed it would be paid direct to her landlord via UC. I don’t think anyone ever explained APA to her.  She doesn’t understand the benefits system although if she was receiving UC statements that clearly show a housing element, I’m not sure how she could please ignorance. She also received regular letters from HB regarding her benefit. I can’t see a way out of if, but wanted to check what other people thought.

I think it would be tricky Phil but there’s no harm in trying and as Va1der says, you can ask them to use discretion not to recover if a challenge doesn’t succeed.

The overpayment here is of UC rather than HB: under Reg 10 of the UC(TP) Regs these overlapping payments count as unearned income on the UC side. That means the overpayment is recoverable, official error or not and the claimant will have to hope that DWP uses its discretion not to recover.  She cannot deflect recovery onto the landlord because the landlord hasn’t received any UC, so she is the only person from whom the o/p is recoverable. .

In terms of making a case for a discretionary write off, her story is (if I understand correctly):

- she assumed HB had stopped
- she didn’t expect her rent to go into arrears because she assumed HB would automatically be replaced by a UC managed payment
- she assumed such a managed payment was in place and regarded the whole UC award as being for living expenses
- she has spent the entire award including the housing element on living expenses
- there never was a managed payment, the only rent she has paid these past couple of years has been the HB that should have stopped but didn’t
- therefore there is no surplus on the rent account that can be used to repay or reduce the overpayment.

No harm in giving it a shot but looks like a tough one.

Thanks HB. I thought the OP was UC as well but HB are recovering, so I thought it may have a better chance of being written off. Thank you for the suggestions, I will put it to the cl.