The Castle Point Plan

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Overpayments

What is an overpayment of Housing Benefit & how do they occur?

An overpayment of Housing Benefit is an amount that has been paid but to which there is no entitlement under the Housing Benefit regulations.
 Overpayments of Housing Benefit occur for various reasons, i.e. changes in household, change in income, change of address etc.
 If the Benefits Service are not informed immediately of any changes in a person’s circumstances an overpayment can occur.

What are my rights?

You have one calendar month to appeal from when you first receive notification of the overpayment.
 You can appeal against the recoverability of the overpayment not who to recover it from. This decision is at the Local Authorities discretion.

If an overpayment occurs, how can I pay this back?

If Housing Benefit remains in payment an overpayment will be collected by weekly instalments from ongoing entitlement. 
 If there is no ongoing entitlement to Housing Benefit an invoice will be issued for the overpayment. 
 The invoice can then be paid by Credit/Debit Card over the phone, BACS (Sort Code - 30 91 56 Account no - 00465509),  or via our  online payments system .

If you are unable to repay

If you are unable to pay the invoice in full, please email the Collections Team on sundrydebtors@castlepoint.gov.uk to arrange a repayment plan. You may be asked to complete an income and expenditure form, below.

Income & Expenditure Form [pdf] 97KB

  For independent advice you may wish to contact the below

Peabody

Stepchange

What happens if I don't repay my overpayment?

Should an invoice remain unpaid after a reminder notice has been issued, the authority can do any of the following –

Contacts:

Collection Team – 01268 882269/882225/882243
 Email:  Sundry Debtors