DWP chasing overpayments after death

[Witsend1]

My cousin recently died and he was a bit of a recluse. When we went through his personal effects we found little evidence of bank accounts etc as he shredded everything. We did hear he was investigated for overpayments from DWP after he retired but nothing came of it and DWP closed their case. However now he’s died I have received a letter from
DWP requesting details of probate as they think he was overpaid. I read that they can claw back a lifetime of overpayments but if they investigated him 5 years ago and closed the case surely they can only look into the past 5 years after the investigation was completed ? He did have a work pension but surely they would have known that ? I am worried sick that they might claw back thousands of pounds. Everything he had was left to me daughter and she was using the money to buy her house , now everything could come crashing down.

[echat11]

Firstly try not to worry.

The DWP make errors all the time. If they closed the case 5 years ago, they wouldn't have done that without a good reason, find the reason.

What you need to do is establish what is what, send the DWP a Subject Access Request, they will send you all the data they have regarding payments / history, they have 30 days to provide this information. You will probably need a letter of administration to send to the DWP. Say over payments has been made, you need someone other then the DWP to do the calculations.

See if you can get some Pro Bono advice from specialist solicitors.

[sederunt]

Such action is pretty much a standard approach by DWP.

When someone in receipt of means tested benefits dies, it is normal for DWP to write to the personal representative advising that the probate record will be looked at to identify whether there might have been any inaccurate reporting of assets in respect of the benefit. So it might be unrelated to a previous investigation.

And personal representatives or executors would normally wait for an outcome before distributing to beneficiaries.