Overpayment Submission

Hi,

Just looking for some advice on what other advisers do with Overpayment Submissions as its not something I regularly deal with.

Our argument is that the client is entitled to UC and therefore no overpayment has been created. In the DWP’s submission, they give arguments as to the overpayment decision itself and have separated both issues into single appeals - is it worth me bothering going into detail with the specific overpayment issues or simply say ‘we believe x was entitled to UC, therefore no overpayment has been created’?

Also, given that all UC overpayments are recoverable, I do not see the point in going into detail something which won’t really get me anywhere.

Thanks

These cases are typically dealt with on the basis that there is an “entitlement appeal” which covers the substantive decision making and an “overpayment appeal” which covers the calculation of the overpayment and its recoverability. There is sometimes also a further appeal logged in relation to a civil penalty. They are all invariably joined together and dealt with at the same time.

It may well be that your client’s primary position is that they were entitled to the benefit all along and, therefore, the decisions should all just be thrown out. But you do need to consider the fallback position if your client’s position is not wholly successful. This will generally require you to check the calculations to some extent - for example, it might be that it turns out that your client has been overpaid but that the DWP’s figures are completely wrong.

In the olden days, there would need to be submissions made about whether any remaining overpayment is recoverable but this is not necessary in relation to UC.

Hi Elliot,

Thanks for the reply - that is extremely useful.

The calculation given doesn’t seem to include all the necessary information and I wasn’t quite sure where I need to include that. Its in relation to a single claim that the DWP state should be a joint claim. It’s logical to then assume that his earnings (clients ex-partner) would be taken into account/deducted but that is not included!

I’ve got two sections: one which shows the now nil award of her UC - which only shows the last page and none of the elements. It does show deductions of around £80 for her earnings from part-time work. The second section gives a “breakdown” of the award with the new calculation showing zero for everything but deductions still the same.

I know they have his earnings for most of the period because he was claiming UC in his own right. Its difficult to do a ‘proper’ calculation of entitlement because my client doesn’t know his earnings.

On a side-note, it appears the DWP have tried to “rush” this through without giving any consideration to anything

Elliot Kent - 10 January 2025 12:04 PM

These cases are typically dealt with on the basis that there is an “entitlement appeal” which covers the substantive decision making and an “overpayment appeal” which covers the calculation of the overpayment and its recoverability. There is sometimes also a further appeal logged in relation to a civil penalty. They are all invariably joined together and dealt with at the same time.

It may well be that your client’s primary position is that they were entitled to the benefit all along and, therefore, the decisions should all just be thrown out. But you do need to consider the fallback position if your client’s position is not wholly successful. This will generally require you to check the calculations to some extent - for example, it might be that it turns out that your client has been overpaid but that the DWP’s figures are completely wrong.

In the olden days, there would need to be submissions made about whether any remaining overpayment is recoverable but this is not necessary in relation to UC.

Regarding the amount to be recovered - The amount to be recovered if the SoS prevails is easy enough to work out but if the Tribunal decides on dates other than those submitted by the SoS I then ask for a direction that the appellant and their rep sort out the exact amount with the SoS with the proviso that if we cannot agree we have leave to bring it back before a Tribunal for a final decision

Adam Evenson - 10 January 2025 01:26 PM

The calculation given doesn’t seem to include all the necessary information and I wasn’t quite sure where I need to include that. Its in relation to a single claim that the DWP state should be a joint claim. It’s logical to then assume that his earnings (clients ex-partner) would be taken into account/deducted but that is not included!

That’s not correct I’m afraid. UC needs to be claimed as a single person or jointly. If your client has claimed as a single person and it is found that they ought to have claimed as a member of a couple, then the consequence of that is that there is no entitlement at all. See s2 WRA 2012.

If this is a living together case (I assume the same one that you have posted about elsewhere), then there would not be much more to it than checking that the amount said to be overpaid is in fact the amount that your client received.

As per Pete above, there is a scenario where the amount of the overpayment needs to be recalculated if the appeal is partially successful - i.e. if your client were found to have been part of a couple for some but not all of the duration of their award - but it is not generally going to be necessary to deal with that at this stage.

Thanks both - very useful and saves me time with the submission!

That makes total sense with the single/joint claim issue - I’ll be able to find out how much she was paid as she’s providing me with bank statements (DWP’s ‘version’ of them doesn’t seem to make sense and I’m curious to see if pages have been omitted: shows no benefit payments)