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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Benefits for older people  →  Thread

Potential recovery of Pension Credit from estate

Vonny
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Welfare rights adviser - Social Inclusion Unit, Swansea

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Hi, this is asked on behalf of a friend and not yet known if their is an overpayment.  Estate has been through probate, he would like to know if there is an overpayment (due to capital as mum was not spending all her income) of pension credit, will it be recoverable from him as the beneficiary of the estate.  He is the executor of the estate and dealing with it as doesn’t want any more fees from the solicitor.  PC was claim in about 2017.
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HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

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If the overpayment is recoverable, it is recoverable from the estate.  As an executor he is responsible for ensuring that creditors are given an opportunity to make any claims against the estate and if he distributes the assets without doing that he could be personally liable.  He is not liable in his capacity as a beneficiary, debts are not inherited by surviving relatives in that way.  It’s his executor role that requires him to repay any overpayments out of the funds in the estate before it is distributed to beneficiaries including him.

DWP will sometimes try it on and ask for repayment of non-recoverable overpayments - for example payments made after the death had been reported.  Those requests can be politely rejected.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Information and advice resources - Age UK

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Yes spot on Peter. The DWP did try to seek recover of a “common law” overpayment from my mother-in-law’s estate after she died. some month’s down the line. We didn’t even bother to dignify them with a response, we just ignored it.

Hopefully the executor followed the appropriate steps regarding paying and debts and outstanding expenses as set out in section 8.2 of our factsheet Dealing with an estate

When all assets have been received, any debts should be paid. If there is insufficient money in the estate to pay all the debts, seek legal advice before paying any debts. If you pay debts in the wrong order, you can become personally liable for any mistakes made. It may be advisable formally to advertise for creditors, in case a debt arises after the assets have been distributed.

This is done by placing a notice in The Gazette at http://www.thegazette.co.uk/wills-and-probate/place-a-deceased-estatesnotice and in a newspaper covering the area where the deceased last resided. Telephone 0333 200 2434 for more information. The notice should include the name of the deceased, the date of death, and the name and address of the personal representative to whom all claims should be sent.

A period of just over two months is normally allowed from the date of the advertisement for the submission of claims. Doing this protects you from personal responsibility, as long as you are not aware of any claims before the estate is distributed.

Vonny
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Welfare rights adviser - Social Inclusion Unit, Swansea

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Brilliant, thanks both

Paul Stockton
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Epping Forest CAB

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DWP will sometimes try it on and ask for repayment of non-recoverable overpayments - for example payments made after the death had been reported.  Those requests can be politely rejected.
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Here’s another to watch out for. I had a client who inherited a pile of money from her brother, who was on PC. DWP claimed an overpayment, based on tariff income from undeclared capital. Further investigation (which DWP should have undertaken, but didn’t) revealed that the deceased’s capital had only gone over the £10k mark during the assessed income period in which he died, so he had not had to declare it. So the overpayment was not recoverable.

Mike Hughes
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Have had multiple cases over the years where claimants accepted DWP exercising their discretion to not recover and thus dropped appeal proceedings which ought to have determined the overpayment as non-recoverable with some finality and then, following death, they decide to exercise their discretion differently and try to recover from the estate.

Margot
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Help to Claim, Redcar and Cleveland Citizen Advice

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Paul Stockton - 21 January 2022 01:52 PM

DWP will sometimes try it on and ask for repayment of non-recoverable overpayments - for example payments made after the death had been reported.  Those requests can be politely rejected.

Can anyone guide me to the regs for the above?  I have a client insistent on paying back his late father’s pension unless he can see this in black and white.

Mike Hughes
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It’s just straightforward s71 Admin Act stuff. Not recoverable unless there’s a failure to disclose/misrepresentation. Anything after the date of notification is official error and therefore not recoverable. They can still ask (and often do as described above) but they can be ignored. People who nevertheless feel obligated to repay are effectively throwing money away.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/5/section/71/enacted

Margot
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Thank you so much Mike