Paying back a Housing Benefit Overpayment
The way you pay back a Housing Benefit overpayment depends on
whether you rent from the
Council, a
Housing Association or a Private Landlord and whether your
claim is still in payment or not.
Next steps if you are still receiving Housing Benefit
Whilst weekly
deductions are being made to repay your Housing Benefit
overpayment, you will be responsible for covering any shortfall
that arises in order to make up your rent with your landlord. It is
important to remember that if your Housing Benefit is paid directly
to your landlord, the amount your landlord receives whilst the
deductions are being taken may not be enough to cover your rent. In
this situation, you must keep track of your rent amounts due and
make the necessary additional payments to your landlord to ensure
that you do not fall into rent arrears.
If you are
experiencing financial difficulties in making the additional
payments, you can request a review of your weekly deduction rate by
the Council's benefits service.
Please
click here for reducing my instalment
repayments
Paying with a one-off payment
As an alternative to weekly
deductions from your Housing Benefit payments, if you would prefer
to pay your overpayment balance in a one-off payment, please call
the Housing Benefit office and ask for an invoice to be sent to you
instead.
Next steps if you are not receiving Housing Benefit
If you no longer receive Housing Benefit we will
send you an invoice for repayment. We will give you 3 weeks to pay
the invoice. In certain circumstances we may give you longer to pay
and we will consider your household incomes and outgoings and other
debts you are repaying or commitments you have.
How do I make payments?
What will happen if I don't pay the outstanding debt?
We
can apply to the Department for Work and Pensions to make
deductions from certain State Benefits you may receive. Up to a
third of your income can be
deducted.
Your debt could be passed to an outside agency
for them to collect the debt on our behalf.
We are also able to register your overpayment in
the County Court. Once registered, we will hold an order to recover
against you, which can be enforced by the Court. Enforcing the
Judgement can mean you will be summoned to Court to examine your
finances and to fix an appropriate instalment arrangement. Failure
to comply with the Court order will result in the Court Bailiff
being instructed under a warrant of execution. We can apply for an
attachment of earnings which means we will recover this debt from
your salary/wages. We can also apply for a charging order on your
property or a third party order to recover money from your bank or
building society account.
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If we register your overpayment in the County
Court and then proceed to enforce the Order to recover, you will be
liable for the extra costs incurred. These will be added to your
original debt. |
Landlord Recovery
If you are a landlord that owes an overpayment and you receive
Housing Benefit for any other tenants, we can recover your
overpayment from the benefit payable in respect of another tenant.
Where recovery is made from another tenant's benefit, that tenant
will be deemed to have paid rent to the value of recovered
amount.
Please click on attached Guide to Overpayments for
full details
Council Tax Benefit Overpayments
Your
Council Tax Benefit is calculated when you first apply or each
April for the year ahead based on your circumstances known at that
time. If, during the year, your circumstances change we may need to
adjust your Council Tax Benefit. This could result in an
'overpayment' of Council Tax
Benefit.
If this happens, we will write to you with details of the
overpayment and send you a revised
Council Tax bill show
the outstanding amount and how to pay
it.
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