Repaying housing benefit

One of Oxford Citizens’ sheltered housing tenants claimed housing benefit to help pay weekly rent of £79.98 (made up of £57.71 net rent, £14.09 service charge and £8.18 heating charge). She supplied her tenancy agreement showing this breakdown. The council awarded full benefit, paying the association £319.92 (£79.98 x 4) every four weeks as part of a block of payments.

Two years later, the council realised it had been paying too much because the heating charge was not eligible for housing benefit. The council’s error had caused an overpayment of £770.

“Official error” overpayments are recoverable unless the claimant and the person getting the money could not “reasonably have been expected to realise” that too much had been paid.

The council accepted that the tenant could not have been expected to realise there had been a mistake, but it decided that the association could have.

The association appealed to the local tribunal, which decided it would have been “the work of a moment” to divide the payment received by four and appreciate that too much had been paid.

The association appealed again, arguing it could not have been expected to go through all the benefit it received to make sure it had all been properly paid.

The social security commissioner dismissed the second appeal. He said it was a matter for the judgment of the tribunal. The test was what the landlord “through all its officers and employees, could have been expected to realise”. The tribunal decision could not be faulted. The overpayment was recoverable.