Does anyone know of any legislation to help with overpayment case. Cl gave all info re his income Council failed to include something,cl now owes over £1000. Cl is a first time council tenant and has never claimed before.

If the Council benefits assessor failed to take into account all the information that the client had provided, then that is an official error, and is not recoverable from the client.
I would suggest you write to Council and ask them politely on what grounds they seek to recovery alledged overpayment from the client, and if they would confirm the exact circumstances under which the overpayment occured................

I have recently received a decision from the appeals service overturning an overpayment against my client. My client is employed and she applied for housing benefit and supplied income details. These were no income details in the decision notice and full H.B. was awarded. I asked for a review of the decision under official error, but it was refused on the basis that my client should have known that therewould not have been entitlement to h.b.
I appealed using the following:

{NAME} did not contribute to this mistake. She does not have expert knowledge or understanding of how Housing Benefit is calculated. She has to rely upon experts such as the Local Authority to provide her with information as to how much Housing Benefit she is entitled to. She has no understanding of the information outlined in the decision notice and justifiably made the assumption that this was correct.

Housing Benefit ( General ) Regulations 1987.

99 (2) An overpayment caused by official error where the claimant {NAME} at the time of the payment reasonably have been expected to realize that it was an overpayment

Ground of appeal are as follows:

1. Overpayment was caused by an official error.
2. {NAME} could not have reasonably been expected to realize that it was an overpayment.
3. It must be shown that {NAME} should have known that there was an overpayment, not that there might have been an overpayment. In Nolan J at 317 held that it was not reasonable expect (her) to work out the entitlement (herself) to decide whether she was getting too much Housing Benefit.
4. There was no contriblition to the mistake by {NAME}. The overpayment as a result is not recoverable, as all criteria required by regulation 99 have been met.

Commissioner Jacob's CH/2554/02 decision is useful as to the issues a tribunal need to consider when dealing an HB official error overpayment appeal. This includes considering whether a claimant could reasonably have been expected to realise they were overpaid, and that the claimant should realise that there actually was an overpayment rather than there might be one.

In a more recent decision, CH/1176/3, he considers the meaning of "time of receipt of the payment" and "notice relating to the payment".A summary of this decision now available in rightsnet's Briefcase area:
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/cgi-bin/publisher/display.cgi?1715-0104-6214+swopshop )

Got one like this myself - have found copy of CH/1176/3 but anyone got a copy of CH/2554/02 per chance?
Either via them genius's at Rightsnet or
e-mail - p.a.kempton@cardiff.gov.uk -or-
fax to - 029 2087 1358.
You're ALL wonderful!! xxxx
Splo'-Paul

Here's a link to CH/2554/2002 (available via the hbinfo.org website).

God bless you Ken.

Just an observation...

Unusually, I beg to differ with part of Mike Shermer's contribution..

Mike stated: "If the Council benefits assessor failed to take into account all the information that the client had provided, then that is an official error, and is not recoverable from the client".

If the LA can show that the clmt could reasonably have been expected to be aware s/he was being overpaid, then the overpayment will still be recoverable.

Irrespective of "first time" claim, the same test applies. It's also worth noting that there are a couple of CDs where the clmt was a "first time" clmt but still came unstuck. In this situation, much will probably depend on the nature of the error.

If for example the error was about income, then the content / quality of the LA's notification letters to the clmt will be a major consideration. If the error was more technical (e.g. would require knowledge of regs), then you'd only normally struggle if you have a client who is an ex benefits officer etc....

I completely agree with the remainder of Mike's post - ask for a FULL explanation of ALL factors etc.

Regards

This is a paragraph I have used in a submission in the past few weeks, and it might assist... (?)...

"The Tribunal has not been asked to decide the recoverability of the overpayment, even though it will be argued that even if the overpayment exists, it would be an official error, which Mrs <...>could have not know about either at the time the payments were made, or when she received notification of those overpayments. This is contrary to case law as expressed by Commissioner Williams in CH/1296/2002:

“This is because Commissioners decision CH/3776/2001 with which I respectfully agree, makes it clear that a tribunal has to consider the recovery of any overpayment not as a whole but by reference to all relevant changes of circumstances including when any official errors occurred”, (paragraph 4)."