Housing benefit overpayments
How do overpayments happen?
Most overpayments happen because customers don't tell us about changes in their circumstances straight away.
Sometimes an overpayment is made because we make a mistake.
It is important that you tell us about any change in your circumstances which is likely to affect the amount of benefit you receive.
These are examples about the changes you should tell us about.
- You stop receiving Income Support or Job Seeker's Allowance.
- Your income changes.
- Someone leaves or joins your household.
- Your rent increases or decreases.
- You move to another address.
- Dependant reaches 18 years old.
Each time your benefit entitlement is calculated you will receive a letter telling you the information we have used in the calculation. You are responsible for making sure the information we have used is correct. The best way to do this is to check the letter.
If you notice a mistake contact us immediately.
If correcting a mistake means you are entitled to more benefit and you have told us about it within one month, we can give you the extra benefit for the full period. If we notice a mistake, we will always correct your benefit entitlement for the full period.
Which overpayments we can recover?
The Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Regulations allow us to ask you to repay most overpayments.
However if the overpayment is the result of a Council, Department for Work and Pensions or Her Majesty's Revenue Services error, we cannot ask you to pay it back, as long as:
- you or the person acting on your behalf did not cause or contribute to the mistake, act or omission
and
- It is unreasonable to expect you to have realised you were being overpaid at the time you received payment or notification of the payment.
In each case, before we decide whether or not to ask you to repay benefit, we look at:
- the cause of the overpayment
- whether you were in any way responsible for the overpayment
- Whether it is reasonable to expect you to have realised that you were being overpaid.
How we legally recover overpayments
If we decide we can ask for repayment, we have to consider:
- whether to ask you to pay it back
- how you will pay it back
If we decide to ask for repayment, there are several ways we can do it.
- We can reduce your ongoing entitlement
If you are still receiving benefit we will reduce your ongoing weekly entitlement until the full amount is repaid. The amount of the reduction each week is set by the Government.
- We can deduct the overpayment from future payments to your landlord (Housing Benefit only).
- We can take money back from your Council Tax account (Council Tax Benefit only). This means you will get a revised Council Tax bill.
We may use one or more of these methods together.
You can repay overpaid benefit by the following methods:
Postal Payments:
Send a cheque to: Dartford Borough Council, Benefits Section, Civic Centre Home Gardens Dartford Kent DA1 1DR
Please make it payable to Dartford Borough Council, and write your name, address and the invoice number on the back of your cheque.
Debit and Credit Cards:
There are two options for making telephone payments. For both please note that the Council can only accept payment by Switch, Visa Debit, MasterCard, Visa, Electron, or Solo.
Customer Services
You can call the Credit/Debit Card Hotline on (01322) 343760 between 9.00am and 4.00pm Monday to Friday to make payments. You need to have your Debit/Credit card and payment reference number (i.e. Housing Benefit invoice number) ready when you call.
Personal callers:
You may pay in person at one of the Council's three Cashiers Offices. These are situated at:
Civic Centre, Home Gardens, Dartford
Open from 8.45am - 5.00pm Monday to Thursday, and 8.45am - 4.30pm Fridays.
Temple Hill Square , Temple Hill, Dartford
Open from 9.00am -12.30pm and 1.00pm -3.30pm Monday to Friday.
Swanscombe Town Council Offices, The Grove, Swanscombe
Open from 9.00am to 1.00pm Monday to Friday.
Standing Order:
If you wish to pay by Standing Order please contact the Overpayments Officer on 01322 343533.
Payment problems?
If you need to talk to someone about paying your invoice, or are having difficulties in repaying your overpayment please call 01322 343533.
If you are no longer receiving benefit when we issue an invoice for the repayment and you don't pay us back or make an arrangement to pay, we will take further action.
We will of course send you a reminder and a final reminder. If you do not contact us after this, we may ask the County Court to issue an order for payment. If the County Court issues an order, this will increase the amount you owe us, because we will have to add costs.
