Client made 1st claim for TCs in Nov 2002 at height of encouragement to claim by TV ads etc. Meanwhile clients partner moved in - partner not working, no income. Once award notice received for TCs (April 26 03) approx 3 weeks after 1st payment made, client tried to ring TC office as instructed to advise them of this change. After repeated calls and msgs saying lines are busy ring back later, client decided to write to tell them of change. They took until Aug 03 to respond. Award stopped and advised new claim to be made as couple. Partner had begun full time work in July so they decided not to claim again.Heard nothing more. Nov 03 they realised they would still be entitled to basic £545 a year so decided to make a new claim as a couple. they were awarded basic and have coninued to receive this amount since. They have always disclosed all income correctly.

However, out the blue in August 05 client found a £2800 in her bank account. Bank advised it was TC payment. She rang TCO to query and she was told it was owed to her from 03-04 tax year. If there was a problem someone would contact her. She never received any letters statements etc about what this amount was for. March 06 (7 months later)she received a giro slip demanding immediate payment of approx £3200.- no explanation as to what this was for. She rang the TCO and they said it was an o/p of tcs. They said it looked like the payment she received in Aug 05 had been calculated as if she was a lone parent. The additional amount is because they say she did not tell them unitl August o3 about change of circs, although she could not get through on phone and the letter took 2 months to be processed.

They said she could complete a form if she disagreed with this. Form sent, client completed and sent back stating they had always kept TC office fully informed and therefore how could this have happended.
Several weeks later she received a letter stating that they had looked at it again but the o/p remained the same and she had no right of appeal. The reason they gave for the overpayment was that she wrote to them in August 03 telling them she was no longer part of a couple and therefore she should have realised she had been overpaid. She had of course written to them to say the opposite. When she queried this with the TCO they said it was the same thing! She asked why she could not appeal and they said that what the rule. She was told she had to put in a complaint. She has done this and has now been sent another form to complete re: looking at an overpayment decision again.
Because there was a gap in TCs in 2003, client thought that the amount must be correct, especially as they has always provided full financial deatils.They are recoverning o/p from her only and not partner.
Questions:

how can this have happened?
she has never been given any written rights of appeal - is this correct?
is it recoverable given she queried it, albeit by telephone and at no point did she ever receive any paperwork about it?
Any help, ideas would be gratefully accepted.

Sorry this is soooooo long
Cheers

Can appeal about amount of overpayment but not about recoverability.

The test is: Was it IR's fault?
Could the client have reasonably been expected to know
she was being overpaid?
Would recovery cause severe hardship?

Answer yes to all of them and you may well have a case.

Do not hesitate to ask for taped recordings of the telephone calls between your client and tax credit helpline - they are often invaluable.

Also involve your local MP's office, they have a hotline they can get through to quickly and the people on the other end actually seem to know what they're talking about - most of the time!

If you haven't already write to the TCO and ask for a full explanation of how the overpayment occured.

Good Luck!!

Thank you for that. I suspect they will tell me the reason the overpayment occurred (as written in the "look at op again" decision letter) was that she had told them she was no longer part of a couple. They reiterated this to her by telephone also. When she said this was incorrect and she had become a couple, they said it was the same thing. What is so annoying is how this payment appeared from nowhere, with no letter, relating to a tax year 2 years previous.

I will ask for full explanation including copies of all claims made etc. to see where this has gone wrong.

Thankyou.

In my experience, the TCO never does tell claimants of their right to appeal.
For overpayments which are quite clearly caused by the TCO's own mistake or inefficiency, I have been pursuing formal complaints with a view to eventually referring them to the Parliamentary Ombudsman and hopefully getting compensation for the claimant by having all or part of the overpayment remitted.
This takes a long time, I estimate up to two years to get a conclusion, but I will not be put off. If the TCO is not continually challenged about inefficiency, it will have no incentive to improve its working methods. More important, it will not get used to the idea that, now it is administering a state benefit, it is accountable to claimants and their advisers.
If the TCO used its discretion to remit overpayments once in a while, I wouldn't have to make complaints. I don't know about other advice agencies, but I have never yet had them agree to remit even part of an overpayment, and neither have my colleagues.

The other thing I do is, check whether the amount of the overpayment has been correctly calculated. Claimants have the right to appeal about the amount of an overpayment. This is not the same as appealing about its recovery, though I have to say that the TCO does not seem to appreciate the difference! They have so far refused to produce appeal papers for the three cases where I'm challenging the amount of the overpayment. However, once I have put my client's side of the case together, I could ask the regional chair of the Appeals Service if he would instruct the TCO to produce appeal papers and then list the case regardless if they still won't. He has done this previously for local authorities that failed to produce appeal papers for housing benefit appeals.

Fri 22-Sep-06 08:40 PM by shawn

(edited to fix link)

they have some nerve stating that an overpayment they made in 2005 was caused by her not notifying a change in circs until August 2003!
(now look what you've made me do!)
if there actually is an overpayment, it can only be an official error.

it is however, this total irrationality that kinda leaves the revenue with no clothes on, in terms of arguing that the man on the clapham omnibus stands any chance whatsoever of knowing whether or not they are entitled to TC!!! (but do they give a fig? anyone who manages to get a reply, please advise!!)

your client did the right thing - she queried it - they couldn't be bothered to check it - what more could she do?

incidently, on contacting the call centre in 2003, rightsnet archive news items might assist. how soon they forget...


here's one-


Tax credits helpline:New statistics ... and advice on when to call

Thank you again,and to jj for that link, very helpful. I think there is a long hard slog ahead, but we will not give up! Have requested full written explanation about how this o/p has occurred, when client has always provided correct info at all times.
Just waiting for their next correspondence. Will endeavour to update this thread IF we get any further soon.

Got a letter today from HMRC in respect of a complaint for a client about an overpayment.

We've been assigned a dedicated caseworker, who has also given us a direct phone number!!!!

I cannot believe it - really gobsmacked!!!

Maybe things are going to get better?

Bet they've left when you try to ring 'em.

Probably!!!

Or it will be one of those numbers that never get answered - I've had a couple for them for other clients.

I know I'm too late to help with this case but, for future reference it may be worth looking at CM15535 of the compliance manual. This shows how, where there is an undisclosed partner, HMRC may use discretion about fully recovering overpayments.

In other words they may consider offsetting the amount which would have been paid had the claimant included the partner in their claim.

I'm not sure what happened in your case but, what they tend to do is say there was no valid claim until the partner was disclosed, so everything paid before then was overpaid.

In this case the partner was disclosed the TCO just failed to include the partner. They have since acknowldged that they have made a boo boo and the overpayment is the fault of the TCO, however and you know what is coming - claimant should have realised they were being overpaid! The overpayment was mainly caused by TCO making a random payment in Aug 2005, with no accompanying paperwork. When queried by claimant on phone they were told it was owed from 03/04 tax year. TCO are now saying when claimant rang she was told it was an error and not to spend money - this is not true. Now asking for proof of this. If indeed this was an error and the TCO office knew this in Aug 05 why did it take 7 months to request it back?......

You need a CD of the call and any other relevant ones. Probably best to apply direct to HMRC Data Protection Unit at Newcastle (with authority, of course - they won't link up with the TCO one) for recordings of all calls.