Overpayment Frequently Asked Questions

• Why do overpayments happen?
• Will you tell me if I have been overpaid?
• I've been overpaid - Can you ask for the money back?
• I've been overpaid - Will you expect me to pay it back?
• I've been overpaid - How do you get the money back?
• What happens if you've overpay my landlord?
• Can overpayments be reduced?
• What are my rights?
• Do I need to tell you if I change address?

 

Why Do Overpayments Happen?

Overpayments can happen for various reasons. Here are some examples.

• You may have given us wrong information.
• You may not have told us something that we needed to know about.
• You may have been slow to tell us about a change.

We might have to work out the amount of your benefit again because of a change in your circumstances or because we've found we've made a mistake.

If you then get less benefit and we've already paid you the higher amount, there will be an overpayment.

In the case of Council Tax Benefit, we pay benefit for a whole year at the start of the year. It's quite likely that something will change during the year and we will find that we've paid too much, or too little, for the rest of the year.

Please note there may be a delay in the time it takes between a change happening, you telling us and us dealing with it.

Even if you tell us straightaway and we deal with it quickly, it is often impossible to avoid some overpayment.

 

Will You Tell Me If I've Been Overpaid?

Yes, we have to tell you about any overpayment and the action we will take.

First, we will write to tell you the new, lower amount of benefit you're entitled to, or we will tell you when you stopped being entitled.

We will also tell you, usually in a separate letter, how much you've been overpaid altogether. This letter may:

• tell you how we're getting the money back; or
• say that we'll be in touch later about paying it back. If so, we'll write to you again to tell you what we're doing or to ask you to send us the money, or to tell you we'll take no further action.

You can ask for more details if you don't think it's clear what we've decided. You have a legal right to ask for the reasons for our decision.

Our notice letters will explain your rights relating to each decision and tell you about time limits. The date of our decision is the date on our letter.

Please read our Guide to Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit - Overpayments  for more detailed information which is available on the Housing Benefit forms page.

 

Can You Ask For The Money Back?

That depends.

We can ask for the money back if it:

• was your fault;
• was not our fault; or
• was our fault but you could have realised you were being overpaid.

For example, if you got a pay rise, you would expect your benefit to go down. In this case, if your benefit doesn't change you should realise something is wrong.

We can't ask for it back if it's our fault and you couldn't have realised you were getting too much.

 

Will You Expect Me To Pay The Money Back?

It depends:

• We will not ask you to pay back overpayments that were our fault, unless we decide you should have known you were being overpaid.
• We won't ask you to repay if we think this is unreasonable.

But, otherwise, we usually expect you to pay us back.

 

How Do You Get The Money Back?

We can get the money back in the following ways:

From your Council Tax account

For Council Tax Benefit we usually take the overpaid benefit back out of your account and you will get a new Council Tax bill with more to pay.

The Council Tax office will try to collect this money from you, for example, by increasing your monthly instalments.

If you don't pay they may get a court order or send bailiffs to your home.

So, if you have a problem paying, get in touch with us before it gets serious.

From instalments of your Housing Benefit

For Housing Benefit, if you're still on benefit we can take money out of each week's benefit to recover the overpayments.

There are legal limits to how much we can take each week.

If the amount we take each week causes you a problem, please tell us. We might be able to change it and take a smaller amount.

By using other money we owe you

If we owe you benefit for another period, we can hold on to the money and use it to repay your overpayment. This is called ' offsetting'. Further information is available in 'Can overpayments be reduced?'

Sending you a bill

We may send you a bill or an overpayment notice letter and you should make arrangements to pay.

If you can't pay all at once, we can arrange instalments, so please get in touch.

But if we don't hear from you, we may register the debt with the county court and ask them to enforce it.

This is the same as having a court order against you, so it will affect your credit rating.

From your landlord

If we've been paying your benefit to a private landlord or housing association, we may ask them to repay the money.

Other ways we can get the money back

We can ask the Department for Works and Pensions to take money out of your social security benefits.

We can ask another council to take money out of any Housing Benefit they are paying you.

 

What Happens If You Overpay My Landlord

Tenants

If you're the tenant of a private landlord, or a housing association, we may have been paying your rent allowance direct to them.

We may have paid too much and the overpayment may be one where we can ask for the money back.

In these cases we could ask you to pay us back, or we could ask your landlord because they've received the money.

We have to decide and tell you our decision. You do have a right to appeal if we choose you rather than the landlord.

Landlords

If you're a landlord you have a right to appeal if you think we should ask the tenant.

In general, if we decide the tenant caused the overpayment and the landlord couldn't have known about it, we would expect the tenant to repay.

But we do have a responsibility to the public to recover overpayments and, if necessary, we will ask the person who is more likely to be able to repay us.

 

Can Overpayments Be Reduced?

Yes, overpayments can sometimes be reduced. Here we give two examples 'Offsetting' and 'Underlying entitlement'.

Offsetting

After we've decided that you've been overpaid, we may get more information that makes us change our decision.

In this case, we'll tell you our new decision about how much you're entitled to.

If this is more than before, the overpayment will be lower than before or you may not have been overpaid after all.

We call this 'offsetting'. We offset the extra money due against what we originally decided was overpaid.

Of course, if we've already recovered the overpayment from you, we'll pay you the extra.

This situation often happens when someone comes off benefit and starts work.

Offsetting Example

Mr Hutton's Jobseeker's Allowance stopped when he started work.

By the time we knew, and stopped his Housing Benefit, we'd paid him three weeks' benefit too much at £65 a week.

So, the overpayment was three weeks x £65 = £195.

Then, when Mr Hutton sent in another claim, we worked out that he was entitled to £23 a week for those weeks because he had low wages.

This meant the overpayment would be less.

He was previously paid £65 a week and was now entitled to £23 a week. That means he was overpaid £42 a week (£65 less £23).

So, he was only overpaid £42 for three weeks, which is £126.

The overpayment is now only £126 and not £195.

Underlying entitlement

If your Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit claim is cancelled, for example, because we have just found out that you were not entitled to Income Support or Jobseeker's Allowance for a past period, you will have been overpaid benefit.

However, if you are able to provide evidence of all your income, savings and investments for the period of the overpayment, we can assess the amount of benefit that you would have been entitled to if we had known your correct circumstances at the time.

If we award benefit for the period of an overpayment it is called ' underlying entitlement' and we will use it to reduce the total amount of the overpaid benefit.

If we are able to do this, we'll tell you our new decision about how much you're now entitled to.

If this is more than before, the overpayment will be lower than before and you may not have been overpaid after all.

 

What Are My Rights?

What are my rights?

• You have a right to ask for the reasons for our decision. You must ask in writing and sign the letter and send it to us.
• You have a right to ask us to change our decision, and have one month from the date of our decision letter to do this.
• Write to us and make it clear which decision you don't agree with. Say why you think we've got it wrong.
• We'll look at our decision again and write to you with the result.

You have a right to appeal to an independent appeal tribunal on some overpayment decisions.

You can do this straightaway when you write to ask us to change our decision.

Or, you can ask us to change our decision first, then appeal if you're not satisfied with our response. Appeals are heard by tribunals run by the Appeals Service which are independent of local authorities.

Appeals must be in writing and signed by you. You must make it clear which decision you're appealing against and your reasons for appeal.

Send your appeal directly to us.

There are time limits and appeals must usually reach us within a month of the decision you're appealing against.

For further information please read our guide What to do if you disagree with a Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit decision which is available on the Housing Benefit forms page

 

Do I Need To Tell You If I Change Address?

Yes, you do need to tell us if you move house.

If you change address we will stop benefit at your old address as soon as possible. But payment may have continued after the date you moved.

What we've already paid counts towards what you're entitled to at your new address.

This shouldn't be a problem if you've moved with the same landlord or if you get your own cheques.

But if we've paid your landlord direct, your old landlord will have had the money and this could leave you short with your new landlord.

We aim to avoid this as far as possible but we can't avoid it altogether.

• Your old landlord may be able to keep the money even though it was meant for your new rent.
  This may happen, if:
  • you were behind with your rent;
  • you didn't give notice; or
  • your notice hadn't run out before you moved.
• If payments after you've moved have put you in credit with your old landlord, you should ask them to pay the amount in credit back to you.
• If you think we've got it wrong, or it's our fault, you can ask us to look at our decision again, but you cannot appeal to an appeal tribunal about this.

 

Should you need further information about anything on this page please contact us at:

Corporate Fraud & Debtors Section
Customer Services
Chester City Council The Forum
Chester
CH1 2HS
Telephone: 01244 402465
Email: overpayments@chester.gov.uk.