Overpayments of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit

If we decide that you have been paid too much Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit, we call this an 'overpayment'. If we decide that you have been overpaid, we will send you a letter which will tell you the following:

• Why we gave you too much benefit
• How much the overpayment is
• The period the overpayment is for
• If you have to pay back the amount and how
• How you can appeal if you think this is wrong

There are different ways in which we may ask you to repay your overpayment.

Overpayments of Council Tax Benefit

These are sent directly to your Council Tax Account and you will be sent a new Council Tax bill telling you how to pay the money you owe.

Overpayments of Housing Benefit

If you are still getting Housing Benefit
We will recover your overpayment from your ongoing housing benefit entitlement. We will write to you about how much we will be recovering from your benefit each week.

For this example, assume we have decided to recover £10.00 per week (your amount will be different to this).

Assuming that both the rent and benefit are £50.00 per week, if we recover £10.00 per week from this entitlement, this would leave Housing Benefit of £40.00 per week towards the person's rent. The person claiming Housing Benefit would therefore have to pay the extra £10.00 to their landlord from their own money.

If you are not getting Housing Benefit anymore
We will send you a bill advising you how much to pay back. You can pay this back to us in full or you can contact us to make an instalment arrangement.