Universal Credits Overpayment due to (what they say) non-disclosure if IIDB

I have just taken a very distressed call from a client to say that she has received an overpayment letter for UC in the region of 6K plus.

The claim is actually a telephone based call, so there is no way of seeing if this was declared at the start of the claim, but the client is adamant that on all other benefit claims, she has always declared this - in fact, as I have limited access to the DWP database, I can see that before the UC claim was made (couples claim) she had a single persons ESA IR claim and this was reduced, as it has the IIDB showing on there.

Is there anyway of challenging this, or is it that any OP’s caused by a claimant or the DWP are recoverable under the UC Regs?

I am not 100% sure if she would have been receiving a paper version of her monthly entitlement, as you would on an on-line claim, so I am thinking that if she does, then they may argue that she should have noticed that the IIDB would have shown up on this.

Any thoughts welcome.

It doesn’t ultimately matter whether or not she disclosed it at the time. The overpayment is recoverable regardless.

She may wish to pursue dispute processes with a view to ensuring that the calculation is correct. She could also consider requesting that the DWP exercise its discretion not to recover, although the prospects of that are slim.

I thought as much Elliot. There are mental health issues at play, but for such as large sum, I doubt that would sway a DM to not recover the overpayment.

Thanks for your reply