Article: Housing benefit overpayments Online interactions for this service Pay for this service Article Body What is an overpayment? An overpayment is when we pay you an amount of housing benefit but you were not entitled to receive either some or all of it. If we have paid you too much benefit, we will usually ask you to pay back the amount you have been overpaid. It is the councils policy to pursue all overpayments that are recoverable. How do overpayments happen? When you claim housing benefit or have a change in your circumstances, we work out your benefit and make every effort to make sure payments are accurate. In some circumstances, we may have to work out your benefit again because you have had a change in circumstances or we have found we have made a mistake. If your benefit goes down and we have already paid you a higher amount there will be an overpayment. Some examples of why an overpayment could have happened are: you may have forgotten to tell us that your income has increased, for example, you have had a pay rise, or your tax credit award or pension amount has increased somebody may have moved into or out of your home you may have moved out of your former home and not told us you may have started work or changed jobs if you have other adults living with you, their circumstances may have changed we may have made a mistake and corrected it later there may have been a short delay between you telling us about a change and us changing your benefit award You must tell us about any changes and not rely on anyone else to do it for you. Even if you have told the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) or Job Centre about your change in circumstances, you must still tell the council because it is the council that deals with housing benefit and council tax benefit, not anyone else. If we pay you too much benefit by mistake this can be recovered if we think it was reasonable for you to have known about it. If we pay you too much benefit because you did not tell us about a change in your circumstances then we will always recover the overpaid benefit. How do we recover overpayments? If you are still getting housing benefit, we will reduce your benefit each week to recover the overpayment. Remember, if the benefit we pay towards your rent is reduced you will have to pay the amount of money we deduct to your landlord from your wages or other benefits. If you pay Berneslai Homes rent and your rent account is in credit, we may ask them to transfer this credit to us to pay back the overpayment. If we are not paying you housing benefit, we will send you a bill and you must make arrangements to repay us. If we paid your landlord your benefit, we might ask them to repay the overpayment, but only in certain circumstances. We can ask the DWP to take money from your other benefits to collect the overpayment. Where you move out of the area, your new council can take money from any housing benefit paid to you. If we overpaid your council tax benefit, we will add the amount of the overpayment to your council tax bill. Our council tax office will collect the overpayment by increasing your monthly payments. Is your overpayment correct? In some circumstances we can reduce the amount you have been overpaid if you tell us about your correct circumstances during the period of the overpayment. If we do this it is called underlying entitlement. If you have an underlying entitlement (which means you could have received some benefit, but not all that we paid) we can use this to reduce the overpayment. What can I do if I cannot afford to repay the overpayment? If you want us to reduce the amount we take from your housing benefit contact us straight away. Our contact numbers are on the back of your invoice, and further down this page. If we have sent you an invoice and you cannot pay the full amount, you can arrange to pay it back in instalments. You should ring us straight away to do this. Before arranging to repay by instalments, you may need to give us details of your income and outgoings. If you do not contact us to arrange to pay, or you stop making payments we may refer the overpayment to a debt collection agency, or register your debt with the County Court and ask them to force you to pay it back. If the court grants a court order against you it will affect your credit rating. We will also add court costs to the amount you owe us. You can only make arrangements to repay housing benefit overpayments with the overpayment recovery section. Telephone: 01226 787395 or 01226 787396 to speak to a member of staff. How can you help? To avoid overpayments make sure you always give us correct information and report any changes in circumstances as soon as possible. For more details please see housing benefit change in circumstances. Application forms Housing and council tax benefit - what to do if you think our decision is wrong Housing and council tax benefit application form Housing and council tax benefit application form - guidance notes Related documents Service standards Legislation Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 Council Tax Benefit Regulations 2006 Housing Benefit (persons that have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006 Council Tax Benefit (persons that have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006 Data Protection Act 1998 Contact details Enquiries and requests for application forms can be made as follows: E-mail: bentax@barnsley.gov.uk Telephone the benefits helpline: 01226 774743 Opening hours: Monday to Thursday 9am to 5pm and Friday 9am to 4.30pm Telephone the overpayment recovery helpline: 01226 787395 / 787396 Opening hours: Monday to Thursday 8.30am to 5pm and Friday 8.30am to 4.30pm Fax: 01226 774733 By writing or sending documents to: Benefits, Taxation and Welfare Rights Division, PO Box 634, Barnsley, S70 9GG By personal visit to any Barnsley Connects office You can also pay online by entering your details below: Payment details * Required field * Reference * Amount (£) Additional information To learn more about our compliments, comments and complaints process please see general complaints. Related services Council Tax Welfare Rights Barnsley Connects Homelessness and Housing Advice View your benefit detaills online Benefit calculator Other useful websites Citizens Advice Bureau(CAB) give free, confidential and unbiased advice on debt National Debtline is a free helpline for people with debt problems Consumer Credit Counselling Service give a free, confidential service to help you work out realistic solutions to your debt problems, they can help you avoid becoming bankrupt and show you how to manage your money. Frequently Asked Questions Why have you sent me a bill for an overpayment of benefit when you paid the benefit to my landlord? Housing benefit can sometimes be paid directly to landlords instead of the person claiming the benefit. If an overpayment of benefit occurs where payments were made to your landlord the overpayment is recoverable from both you and the landlord. The council looks at who the benefit was paid to, why the overpayment occurred, who caused the overpayment and whether that person would have known they were being overpaid before deciding who should repay an overpayment. If you have a change in your personal circumstances, such as starting work or starting to get tax credits, it is not reasonable for a landlord to know about such changes. The overpayment decision where this is the case will normally be to recover from you as the person that claimed benefit and declared that they would inform the council of those changes. What can I do if I do not agree with the overpayment? If you do not agree with an overpayment, or are not sure about it, you can ring us on 01226 774743 and ask us to explain the decision. If you want to dispute the decision see the information page ' Housing benefit appeals'.