Overpaid Benefit

An overpayment is any amount of benefit that has been paid to you but you were not entitled to receive.

If you then get less benefit and we have already paid you the higher amount, there will be an overpayment.

Overpayments happen for various reasons. Here are some examples.

• you may have given us wrong information.
• you may not have told us something that we needed to know about.
• we may have made a mistake
• you may have been slow to tell us about a change

Council Tax Benefit Overpayments

We pay council tax benefit for a whole year at the start of the year. If something changes during the year you could be paid too much for the rest of the year.

Any changes to your benefit will be sent to your council tax account. Council Tax will then send you a bill for the new amount

Paying Back an Overpayment 

We can usually ask you to pay back what we have overpaid.

We can ask for the money back

• if it was your fault
• if it was not our fault
• if it was our fault but you could have realised you were being overpaid

We will write to tell you how much you have been overpaid and the action we will take. This is called the decision notification letter. The letter will tell you what to do if you think our decision is wrong or you do not agree with our decision.

If you are struggling to pay back an overpayment and would like us to re-consider the amount of your regular payments, contact us. You will need to complete an income and expenditure form and send it to us. To download the form, click on the link at the bottom of the page under Downloadable Documents.

We can get the money back in the following ways.

• from your council tax account
• from instalments of your housing benefit
• from your rent account, if you are a council tenant
• by using other money we owe you
• by sending you a bill.
• from your landlord
• we can ask the Department for Works and Pensions to take money out of your social security benefits.
• we can ask another council to take money out of any housing benefit they are paying you.

Underlying Entitlement

If you are overpaid housing benefit or council tax benefit, we can sometimes reduce the overpayment if you provide us with evidence of all your income, savings and investments for the period of the overpayment.

We will calculate the amount of benefit that you would have been entitled to if we had known your correct circumstances at the time. We will use this amount to reduce the total amount of the overpaid benefit.

How to Disagree With Our Decision

You can either ask us to explain our decision, ask us to look at our decision again or you can appeal against our decision. You should contact us within one month of the date on the letter if you disagree with our decision.

Click on the link in the main menu for further details about how to disagree with our decision.

Where to Find Out More Details

For answers to Frequently Asked Questions, click on the link on the right under Do It Online.

For more details about housing and council tax benefits in English and other languages, click on the Benefit Leaflets link on the right under Useful Websites.

Where to Get Help

You can always contact us for help and advice. Click on the link in the main menu for more details about how to contact us.

For a helpful contact list, click on the link at the bottom of the page under Downloadable Documents.

How to Comment on Our Service

You should contact us. We would like to know what you think about this website, or about the service we provide to you. Click on the link in the main menu for more details about how to contact us or email us benefits.service@islington.gov.uk