I've got a rather unusual overpayment case. Client worked as postmaster in a voluntary project designed to keep a rural PO open. Royal Mail paid a salary but as the client felt that keeping the money was not in the spirit of the enterprise they had the salary paid into the voluntary project account. DWP say client was overpaid CA as they had too much income. The only angle I can think of for the appeal is that the client legally assigned the money to the project and therefore had no personal income from it. The only type of assignment documents I am familiar with are those in Housing Benefit where the claimant assigns the HB to the landlord. Does any one know whether the mere fact that the client instructed Royal Mail to pay the project is sufficient to establish that it was assigned or does the person it was assigned to have to be a siganatory to an assignment as they do in the HB papers.

I could of course be barking up the wrong tree entirely - I'd be grateful for some advice if anyone has any ideas.

The law on assigning a legal chose in action such as the right to be paid money, which I think this would be, is to be found in s 136 of the Law of property Act 1925 or was the last time I looked. If the assignment is for no consideration, it needs to be in writing and signed by the assignor, and the assignor or assignee needs to give written notice of the the assignment to the creditor, No specific form or wording is required as long as it is clear. The assignment is not complete until all formalities have been complied with, unless value has been given.

I never thought I'd use that piece of information again.

My worry would be -as often - deprivation of a resource and consequent notional income; see reg 4 of the dear old computation of earnings regulations for people who do a job for which pay would normally be expected. Who paid him anyway - the Post Office or the voluntary project?

Also (more trusts law):was he one of the trustees of the voluntary project (eg committe member of a reg charity?) If he was put in a position to earn the money purely by virtue of his trusteeship then according to a long-standing equitable principle a trustee must not make a personal profit from his position and a court would feel compelled to order him to hand his profits over.


What an interesting range of possibilities.

Brigid

Hi Brigid, thanks for your reply. The voluntary project is registetred under the Industrial & Provident Societies Acts 1965 - 1978 and decribes itself as the xxxxxx Community Association Limited. The document assigning the earnings to it is probably a part of the application to the Post Office in the way that most employers ask for account details for payment of wages (apologies, it isn't Royal Mail anymore, my age is beginning to show!)

with regard to reg 4 Iwas particularly interested in (2)(b)(i) and the exclusions or people engaged in voluntary work and the provision for the Sec. of state to be satisfied that it was not possible for the person paying to pay the claimant.This obviously wouldn't apply to the Post Office but it might be an argument that the Community association couldn't afford to maintain the community post office unless the 'wages'were paid into it's funds rather than going to the notional employee and (to follow that line to it's logical conclusion) that if the wages did not come into the community PO then it would close and the employment would perforce cease. This highlights the dual roles - Post Office provides the right to operate a PO but everything else (premises etc.) is down to the Community association so is the Comunity association de facto an employer?

Any thoughts would be appreciated. The last argument is rather more convoluted than I would like (and we would obviously have to have compelling evidence about the finances)but I wonderv if anyone out there thinks it has any merit.

cheers Pete