A client submitted a claim for Housing and Council Tax Benefit but failed to declare her occupational pension on the actual claim form. However, she did provide a bank statement which highlighted her occupational pension and shortly after her Housing Benefit was assessed she provided them with an Income Support notification letter which did declare her Occupational Pension. However, this was overlooked by the Local Authority.

They have now decided that the overpayment is recoverable from my client and they do refer to Commissioners Decision CH/69/2003 which suggests that the Local Authority does not need to analyse the amounts paid into a bank. Therefore it is not a Local Authority error.

Is anyone aware of a more recent decision that may assist me with disputing this overpayment?

There is a more recent decision that starts to find differently to CH/0069/2003, but then finds against the clmt anyway (sorry, can't locate the ref for now).

In the "other" CD, the facts meant the Cmmr distinguished it from CH/0069 and decided that the LA should have spotted the income on the bank statement(s). HOWEVER, the Cmmr then went on to find that, in any case, the clmt contributed to the LA mistake by not disclosing the income on the claim form AND that the clmt could reasonably have been expected to be aware s/he was being overpaid. All of which meant the o/p was recoverable in any case.

Whenever a clmt fails to disclose info on a claim form (assuming the question was asked), LAs will be successful in such cases on the vast majority of occasions.

If the Income Support notification letter had Occ Pen down, was she awarded IS then? And if so, why did the occ pen make any difference if it had already been taken into account for IS? Did her circumstances change before/after IS was awarded or was the IS notification for a different period to when HB/CTB awarded?

She originally completed the Housing Benefit form based on her Income Support. Her Income Support was paid from 29/1/05, taking her Occupational Pension into account. However, shortly afterwards her Incapacity Benefit was assessed and backdated to 24/1/05 and therefore this took her over the Income Support level. I hope this clarifies the situation.

Is anyone else aware of the more recent Commissioners decision? where the Local Auhtority have to pay more attention to bank statements etc....

I think the decision Kevin mentions is CH/1626/2006.

But I think you are looking for is CH/602/2004.

Or thank you very much for all your help!