Appealing overpayments outside of the absolute time-limit

Hi,

I have a client who has an overpayment of ESA due to an alleged non-disclosure of his partner’s work pension. MR was requested in 2021 with the decision not to change it - they didn’t appeal at the time.

Client at the time and subsequently afterwards had multiple overpayments of IS and another ESA overpayment (appeal in process for the second ESA overpayment as this is in time) and during this time became very confused as to what was owed. Made worse by the fact DWP Debt Management sent a letter saying they owed £8K with no breakdown of any the different overpayments.

We became involved in 2023 and tried to work out what had happened - needed a SAR which still wasn’t conclusive.

The 2021 overpayment is disputed and she has an independent witness to say she did call twice to inform about the changes. Is there any way we can either appeal or get the decision waived (potentially on “official error” grounds)?

Any advice or thoughts on next steps is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

The time limit for appealing is one month, extendable to a maximum of thirteen months with good reason. Obviously that has been missed by miles.

The courts have held that there are cases where sticking rigidly to the thirteen month limit would amount to a breach of the claimant’s human rights in the sense that it would render the right of appeal unusable. We might imagine a case where the claimant was lacking capacity throughout those thirteen months or something like that. There doesn’t seem any reason to think that would arguably apply here.

So an appeal is out.

An application for ‘any time’ revision e.g. on grounds of official error can always be made - even if revision has previously been considered - if it is appropriate to the case.

Thanks Elliot - I’ll see about the “any-time” revision on grounds of official error