advice please

[Burgandy]

Hi, I have been fighting the council for 6 years over a housing benefit overpayment caused by them needless to say court ruled in their favor in the end, anyway I've made an offer of 100gb per month which they have rejected they have demanded original docs bank statement,mortgage account,house ins,savings account etc where do I stand in the eyes of the law do I have to provide all this or can I refuse. Only ever claimed hb in 2010 for 1 year never claimed since as my wife and I work fulltime just wondering if they have the right to demand all this info when I've offered 100gb per month

[seduraed]

Re: advice please

How far from where you now live is this council? If they are a reasonable distance go down to their offices with the documents and get them to scan and then return the documents to you. Many councils will accept scans of documents so you couls send them by email . What the council are trying to esablish is how much you can afford to pay. The tories have starved local councils of cash and the councils are trying morand more desparate measures to raise money.
How much do thy claim you owe?

[Burgandy]

Re: advice please

Its 1600 can I refuse to provide all this documentation to them as I've offered 100gb per month .

[Snoopy1948]

Re: advice please

I worked as a revenue enforcement officer for 23 years and retired in 2014. One of my responsibilities was to recover housing benefit overpayments regardless of whether they were through fraud or claimant error. I can tell you that I would accept £100 a month on a debt of £1600 without further comment providing the arrangement worked. Of course its all down to each individual local authority and this one does seem a stickler. I remember our benefit section had their own income/expenditure form ( that was mainly used for things like discretionary housing benefit claims ) but the same can be used to assess disposable income.

Seems to me that this council is being extremely zealous in their recovery and possibly taking a high handed view that you don't have a life to pay for outside their own debt with you. The only reason that I can see here is that they sense you have a substantial disposable income and they simply want more of it.

Can I ask how the HB overpayment arose? You said that it was their fault but in all those that I negotiated, only one was down to local authority error. One thing you could do is to set up a standing order to the council at £100 a month ( you will need the councils bank details and a specific reference number for the overpayment, that may be different to your benefit reference number ) and tell them you have done this. I cannot see any other legal authority support the council in their claim for more if you are paying and at a reasonable rate. The important thing though is to pay and keep paying. Please remember that this is a public money debt and therefore has to be repaid.

You may also wish to create your own income / expenditure form ( i.e. all monies in and all monies out ) to support your payment, in fact I suggest you do that. However, if you have savings in excess of the debt, it may be prudent to simply clear the debt in one as certainly a court can suggest that you do just that.