I wonder if someone can clarify the following point for me;
A client has lodged an appeal against a CTB overpayment decision. Their Council tax bill has been adjusted to include the overpayment and therefore gives the council the ability to use council tax powers of recovery.
The question is once an appeal has been lodged (and accepted,as in this case it is a late appeal) can they still pursue recovery of the amount that is in dispute?
For all other benefits the normal practice is to suspend recovery until the appeal has been settled either way....has this practice got any legal basis and can it be applied to council tax in this situation?
Thanks.

There is nothing in law about suspending recovery when there is an appeal, but it is now widely accepted as good practice. The local governent ombudsman has certainly held that recovery while an appeal is outstanding could amount to maladministration. I would have thought that the principle should be the same for both HB and CTB. The law is slightly different for CTB in that an overpayment of CTB effectively becomes unpaid council tax, and all the relevant council tax powers of recovery and enforcement can be used, as you say. If anything the potential for injury and injustice is even greater in CTB for that very reason.

thanks andy.

I would suggest that you approach the Council Tax Department and advise them that an appeal has been lodged and ask them to hold any recovery action. It may be that they ask the Housing Benefit Department whether they think the appeal has any chance of success or how long it is likely to take. If you make an arrangement - even if it is much lower than the payments that would otherwise be required to clear the account - then I would hope that they will be more likely to suspend further recovery action for the time being.

Thu 28-Apr-05 03:19 PM by ken

I'm not sure if the following link to a 14 January 2005 rightsnet news story may be useful.

It highlights the DWP advice to LA's in its Housing Benefit Direct newsletter, that, given a decision on the recoverability of an overpayment is appealable, the 'sensible approach' is to postpone the actual recovery of the overpayment until the prescribed time for appealing has expired, and reminds LA's that this is already covered at paragraphs 4.07 and 6.25 of the HB/CTB Overpayments Guide -

Overpayment recovery pending a possible appeal: DWP encourages local authorities to delay action

thanks ken

I had a very similar case last year. First we wrote and asked why the council tax dept was not following the practice of the same LA's HB dept (both benefits had been overpaid and HBO was holding HB recovery pending the appeal result). When this cut no ice, CPAG wrote a 'letter before action for judicial review' for me, and after consulting their legal dept, this instantly produced a suspension of recovery.