Hello all

Have a bit of an ongoing dispute with Housing Benefit about an alleged overpayment dating back to 1999. Originally housing benefit themselves told me that they could not deduct payments from ongoing benefits as the overpayment was too old. However they are now trying to make deductions from the client's pension credit. I can't find anything that says this is wrong, but as HB told me originally that they couldn't do this i was wondering if anyone was aware of any rules about direct deductions and the age of overpayments.

Pension Credit is a prescribed benefit, and so deductions can be made, but there is no reason why deductions should not be made from ongoing HB.

As ever, I would advise that you get hold of a copy of the original overpayment decision. There is every possibility that it might not be valid or cannot be produced. This would mean that the clock has not started to run in relation to the appeal time limits

You could also ask for a statement of resons for the decision and then once you have it, submit an appeal within 14 days of it being issued (Sch 1 Tribunal Procedure (First Tier Tribunal) (Social Entitlement Chamber) Rules 2008 SI 2008 no 2685).

Its generally accepted that there can be no recovery of an overpayment while an appeal is pending

many thanks, the 14 day info is partcularly useful.