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Invoice/demand for payment from local authority for alleged over payment from 2012
Hi,
I dont know if this is in the right place, also posted in General Legal issues as well.
Today I received a copy invoice dated 2012, for overpayment of housing benefit plus a seperate letter giving me 7 days to pay £770.
As you can imagine, im a little confused.
I have no recollection of having an overpayment of housing benefit from 2010/2011?
I rang the council, to enquire, what this is and was told that a fraud investigation was done, and that i had attended an interview under caution in 2011/2012, again, no recollection of this having happened.
At this point, I stated that I would be disputing this invoice, and that looking at the dates the debt falls under statute barred, to be told, "you do realise that only means the debt is legally unenforceable" to which I replied that I knew that, and until they could give me a full breakdown of what this is, where it had come from, and any other details that they have about it, Im disputing it.
I was then told that I had to put that in writing, and was given an email address to use. My question is, do I need to follow the set format as I would if I had received a court letter.
ie, send a Statutory Access Request form, whilst not admitting liability to anything, and stating in writing that Im disputing it, and that its statute barred.
Is there anything else i need to be aware of when dealing with a local authority.
One of the things i would like to know is, why have they waited over 6 years to get in touch with me regarding this issue?
If I owed them money, surely they would have been chasing me for it before now?
Can anyone please advise, thanks in advance.
I dont know if this is in the right place, also posted in General Legal issues as well.
Today I received a copy invoice dated 2012, for overpayment of housing benefit plus a seperate letter giving me 7 days to pay £770.
As you can imagine, im a little confused.
I have no recollection of having an overpayment of housing benefit from 2010/2011?
I rang the council, to enquire, what this is and was told that a fraud investigation was done, and that i had attended an interview under caution in 2011/2012, again, no recollection of this having happened.
At this point, I stated that I would be disputing this invoice, and that looking at the dates the debt falls under statute barred, to be told, "you do realise that only means the debt is legally unenforceable" to which I replied that I knew that, and until they could give me a full breakdown of what this is, where it had come from, and any other details that they have about it, Im disputing it.
I was then told that I had to put that in writing, and was given an email address to use. My question is, do I need to follow the set format as I would if I had received a court letter.
ie, send a Statutory Access Request form, whilst not admitting liability to anything, and stating in writing that Im disputing it, and that its statute barred.
Is there anything else i need to be aware of when dealing with a local authority.
One of the things i would like to know is, why have they waited over 6 years to get in touch with me regarding this issue?
If I owed them money, surely they would have been chasing me for it before now?
Can anyone please advise, thanks in advance.