I've been approached by a man who worked and claimed for a number of years, generating a very large overpayment of Incapacity Benefit.

He has already been prosecuted for fraud, and a confiscation order made to force sale of his property within six months, or apparently he will go to prison. He was represented by a solicitor at the hearing on the criminal charge.

He has queried the legality of the order with the solicitor, who advised that he would need to get opinion from a solicitor dealing in civil matters to identify if there was any possibility of 'challenging' the confiscation order at this stage. He felt that the order was made without allowing him to make any representations on the issue. He tells me that his property was transferred to his wife's sole ownership several years ago.

Does anyone have any experience of this sort of issue? My instinct is that there is little prospect of further action in respect of the order, but would welcome any input.

Not my area of law, but appeals against confiscation orders seem to go to the Criminal Court of Appeal, presumably because they are in effect part of the sentence. Seems to me a criminal solicitor would be best placed to advise him.

In any event he needs a solicitor if he is to challenge the decision.

i agree he needs a criminal solicitor as this order is part of the punishment - again, not my area of law.

neither is land law.

however, if the house is not in his name as owner, and hasn't been for a number of years, i think one of the issues that the criminal solicitor might look at is whether the court had the power to make the order it did.

did the court know it wasn't his house?

if they didn't, then there might be something there.

of course, there may well be issued about what his wife knew etc, but that's antoher matter and she would need to be separately represented - in fact, she shoudl go get some advice herself immediately from a completely different firm from her husband's but one which does both criminal and civil.

hopefully they'll qualify for legal aid, as this is going to be expensive ....

Thank you for these helpful replies.