Hi,

We are a H.A and have a former tenant who has terminal cancer, is in a care home and only has 'pocket money' to live on.I sent details of his circs to L.A and asked that they do not recover from us as we have no means of getting it back from tenant.HB manager emailed me initially expressing concern and saying that he would be recommending to his manager that the o'pymt be deemed unrecoverable.Now he has written saying they are to recover from us.Any ideas?

Cheers,

Jeannette

What caused the overpayment?

Have yopu tried getting his local councillor involved. The LA do have a discretion not to recover, ask them for their policy on this and for examples of when they will exercise that discretion. If they won't or can't supply the information then they may well be fettering their discretion and the decision to recover the overpayment can be challenged by way of Judicial Review.

I had a case where a tenant went into a care home and as a result thwe LA decided that there was an overpayment and it was recoverable from us.

I initially challenged the overpayment as the LA had failed to distinguish between any temporary absence if he entered the home on a trail basis, and entitlement for HB during the 4 week notice period. (The 4 weeks notice had not been given)

It turned out that Social Services had been invloved and they decided from the onset that he could not return home.

I challenged that and used a Court of Appeal judgement Hammersmith and Fulham LBC v Clarke CA 20 November 2000 in order to show that the tenant should still be considered to be temporarily absent, deptite the intervention of Social Services.

I also argued that alternatively, the overpayment should be recovered from Social Services as the person who had failed to disclose a material fact.

The LA caved in and we heard no more about it