Questioning Overpayment Recovery

[atendoftether]

Hi , I have only just found this site ,hoping someone here can help or advise me .

 

My Husband and I were in receipt of benefits IS SDA DLA and CA along with Housing and Council Tax benefit . I was advised by lady in social security that I could work for 16 hours a week without it affecting our benefits , because my husbands illness was terminal going out to work for a few hours was a break for me ( even though I took a job in a nursing home as a carer ), this is what I did . I worked 2 days a week from 2002-2003 my wage after tax and insurance contributions was roughly £70 .

 

In 2003 I stopped working when my husband became so ill I had to care for him full time Then in 2004 after receiving a letter from the DHSS stating that they wanted to speak to me about working while claiming . I attended an interview where I admitted that Yes I had worked over that period ,but I had only taken the job after speaking to staff at the local DSS office who advised me that I could do this without it affecting our benefits .

 

I was told that I was liable to pay back all of the benefits we had received over the period I had worked this totalled almost £16,000 .

 

10 years on and I am still paying back all of these benefit overpayments admittedly at reduced rates because of hardship but its still a struggle .

 

My question is should I still have to pay back Housing and CT benefits when I was only earning £70 a week ? Surely I would have received some help from these benefit sections .

 

My husbands illness is in its final stages and I am in poor health myself , my worry is when he dies I'll end up in prison because I can't afford the repayments .

[estellyn]

I'm sorry, but there is a limited amount of time in which you can challenge an overpayment - 13 months from the initial decision. After this point there is nothing you can do apart from get the rate of repayment changed due to hardship.

 

 

If you had been misadvised, or the overpayment was incorrectly calculated, you could have challenged the overpayment and gone to tribunal if challenged within the time limit.

 

 

On a positive note, you won't go to prison for non payment of debt anymore.