Terms & Conditions

[aosulliv]

Advice please.

Have a case which was heard a couple of weeks ago in respect of an overpayment of HB in excess of £9,000.00.

The overpayment is wholly L/A error, but is considered recoverable as the notification letters were issued to the claimant stating that the entitlement to HB was calculated on the basis of their entitlement to Income Support.

The claimant did not attend the hearing, but the Chair stated that the claimant had discharged her responsibility for the overpayment (although there is no information from the claimant for this decision to have been made) and that the overpayment is not recoverable from her.

Would you consider a request for a set aside under Reg 57(1)(b) or seek leave to appeal to Commissioners?

[Nicky]

Whatever you want to do – your first step should be to ask for a statement of reasons for the decision.

I would say it’s unlikely you’ll get a set aside as you attended the hearing and put your side across, so your only option (depending what the SOR says) would be to seek leave to appeal to the commissioner.

[Kevin D]

I agree with Nicky.

If the reason(s) revolve ONLY around the clmt’s discharge of responsibility (meaning, presumably, notifying the LA?), that will probably be an error in law on the grounds that the Tribunal has failed to consider para 2 of HBR 100 (i.e. the reasonable to realise etc).

Based on the limited info available, I wonder if this is another HB case where the Chair has relied only on s.71 and forgotten about s.75.

Regards

[aosulliv]

The problem I have is that the Chair has provided a SoR with the decision. The claimant did not discharge liability by informing the L/A, the error was found after an Interventions Visit.

From reading the decision and SoR, there is no demonstration of the claimant discharging liability, so I have asked for the decision to be set aside on the basis that the claimant was not there to ascertain her knowledge etc…

Hopefully this will work

[Author]

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