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I wanted advice on whether there was any further challenge open to my client in respect of an overpayment of housing benefit.
The overpayment relates to the period 22nd October 01 to 16th December 01 (a total of 8 weeks) and amounted to £392.00. The overpayment relates to the inclusion of a non-dependent deduction (of £47.75)in the determination of HB entitlement.
The overpayment was created on 12th December 01 and the claimant was notified on 14th December 01 that they had been overpaid for the aformentioned period.
The claimant did not appeal the overpayment decision but advised the authority that his son had left his property on 17th November 01. It appears that the authority then removed the NDD for the period 19th November 01 to 16th December 01 and amended entitlement on 29th Jan 02. This should have effectively reduced the overpayment by half. However, the authority then made the mistake of crediting the claimant's account with the amount of the NDD despite the fact that HB had already been paid for this period. In other words they duplicated the payment of HB for the period 19th November 01 to 16th December 01.
Recovery action commenced by way of direct deductions from the claimants ongoing entitlement to HB. However, later this stopped as the claimant no longer had an HB entitlement.
On 16th December 06 the authority wrote to the claimant notifying him that the sum of £260.32 remained outstanding.
On 11th Jan 07 we wrote to the authority about the matter. They've accepted that the sum paid twice in error for the period 19th November 01 to 16th December 01 cannot be recovered and have reduced the sum outstanding to £69.32.
What we wish to do now is to challenge the overpayment of £191.00 for the period 22nd October 01 to 18th November 01 as the claimant's circumstances were such that the maximum NDD should not have applied.
As stated above the claimant did not appeal the original overpayment decision.
However, when the claimant advised the authority of his change of circumstances which resulted in the original overpayment amount being reduced he did not receive a letter notifying him of the reduction - he did, as stated above, appear to get a letter notifying him of his new entitlement - and the authority state that 'there is only one overpayment decision, and that is the one notified...on 14th December 01'.
Is this correct?
Does the authority not have a duty to issue a separate overpayment decision which is then open to challenge?
Any help would be gratefully appreciated.
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