What is an overpayment?
An overpayment is when you have been paid more Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit than you are entitled to. This happens when a change in your circumstances has reduced the amount of benefit due to you from a past date. This could be for one of the following reasons.
An increase in your income.
A change to your household.
If you have moved out of the property.?
If there is an overpayment it is our responsibility to get the money back.
What if the overpayment is not my fault?
You may still have to pay it back, if we believe you knew you were being overpaid.
Can I appeal against the overpayment?
You can appeal within one calendar month from the date that you were told about the overpayment. Your appeal must:
be in writing;
be signed by you or someone you have given permission to deal with your appeal; and
explain the reason why you are appealing.
You can also ask us to reconsider our decision or explain how we worked out the overpayment. You can ask for an explanation at any time, but it is important that you contact us quickly because you only have one calendar month from the date of our decision letter to appeal. If you ask us to give you an explanation in writing, we will extend the month by the amount of time it takes us to write back to you.
We will not start to reclaim the overpayment until the time you have to make an appeal has ended.
If you do not appeal within one month of the date of our decision and you still want to appeal, you will have to tell us in writing why your appeal is late as well as your reasons for appealing.
If you need more information about appeals and disputes, please contact us, or ask for our appeals and disputes leaflet.
How can I pay the money back?
Housing Benefit overpayments
If you are still entitled to Housing Benefit, we will take the overpayment from your benefit at a set weekly rate.
If you no longer qualify for Housing Benefit, we will send you an invoice asking you to repay the overpayment. If you can’t repay the amount in full you will need to contact us on 0845 602 1745 or by email at overpayments@hounslow.gov.uk to make arrangements to pay by instalments.
Council Tax Benefit overpayments
If you have been overpaid Council Tax Benefit we will add the overpayment to your Council Tax account. This will increase the amount of Council Tax that you pay. We will then send you a new Council Tax account that includes the overpayment. If you need to make payment arrangements, please contact us on 020 8583 4242.
What will happen if I do not make or keep to an offer to repay?
Please do not ignore our letters as the overpayment will not go away. If we have to take further action to get the money back, we may add extra costs to the amount that you already owe.
We can take the following action.
We can take deductions from other benefits that you may receive.
We can pass the debt to collection agents who will contact you to pay the money back through them.
If landlords do not repay overpayments back to us we may take the full overpayment from Housing Benefit we pay to them for other tenants.
We can ask the county court to register the debt as an order of the court. This can be done as if it were a county court judgement and could mean bailiffs taking and selling your belongings, an attachment of earnings (these are deductions made directly from your earnings with your permission), a charging order, which will affect you selling or getting credit on any property you own, or you could be made bankrupt.
Hardship
If you are having serious financial difficulties you must let us know. We may be able to reduce the amount of the instalments you pay.
Discretionary housing payments
If you are having difficulties paying your rent or Council Tax, we may be able to pay you a discretionary housing payment (DHP). These are payments to help with your rent and council tax. You can get more information and an application form at any of our offices.
Help and advice
We can provide help and advice at all of our offices, or by phone. If you want independent help or advice, we can provide a list of local organisations that can help.
Contact us
Revenues Services offices:
The Civic Centre
Lampton Road
Hounslow
St Catherine’s House
2 Hanworth Road
Feltham
All our offices are open from 8.45am to 5pm Monday to Thursday and 8.45am to 4.45pm on Fridays.
Phone: 020 8583 4242
Phone lines are open from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Thursday, and 8.45am to 4.45pm on Friday.