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An overpayment of housing benefit is when we pay you or your landlord an amount that you were not entitled to receive. If we have paid you too much housing benefit, we will usually ask you to pay back the amount we have overpaid.
If you've been overpaid
If you’ve been overpaid housing benefit, we will write to you. Check the letter carefully to make sure your income and other details are correct.
If your details on the letter are correct, do one of the following:
If you think that you will have trouble paying or if any of the details on the letter are wrong please contact us straight away, we are here to help.
If you don't pay
If you don't pay, we will send you a reminder. If you still don't pay, we may get a County Court Judgment (CCJ) and take enforcement action against you.
This will immediately affect your credit rating and cost you money.
Enforcement can include:
going to court
the court deducting money directly from your wages
court bailiffs coming to your home and taking goods
if you own your home, a charging order could be placed on your property which could mean you have to sell your home.
More on overpayments
Overpayments happen for various reasons. An overpayment often occurs if you don't tell us about a change of circumstances, for example if your income has increased or if someone has moved into or out of your property.
Sometimes, you may be claiming housing benefit while you are waiting for another benefit to be awarded. If you are then awarded the other benefit, this may result in an overpayment of housing benefit. We will usually ask for this money to be repaid.
If you reported a change to us and we didn't act on it for a long time, we won't automatically ask for it to be repaid. Much will depend on whether you knew you were being overpaid housing benefit at the relevant time.
To reduce the risk of an overpayment, please tell us straight away about any changes in your circumstances.
Each time your housing benefit entitlement is worked out, you 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.
Please check the letters we send to you. If you notice a mistake please contact us straight away.
In most cases overpayments are recovered from you, the claimant. This is because you would have known benefit was being overpaid. A breakdown of housing benefit is sent to you even if you are not receiving the payments.
Overpayments of housing benefit can be recovered in the following ways:
if you are still getting housing benefit, we may reduce your benefit each week to recover the overpayment
if you pay us rent and your rent account is in credit, we may use this credit to pay back the overpayment
if you receive benefit from the Department for Work and Pensions, we may take an amount from this benefit
if we are not paying you housing benefit, we may send you an invoice and you should make arrangements to pay us
if we paid your landlord your housing benefit, we may ask the landlord to repay the overpayment in certain circumstances, if the landlord would have known that they were being overpaid; or
if you are working, we may ask your employer to give us a percentage of your wages. This is called a Direct Earnings Attachment
We can discuss repayment with you so that we don't ask you to pay too much each week.
If you disagree with the overpayment after reading our explanation you must write to us and ask for a more detailed explanation, or you can ask for us to look at our decision again. You need to do this within one calendar month of the date on the letter.
If you are not satisfied with our decision or how we explain our decision, you may be able to appeal.
