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- Devastated my ESA has been withdrawn - Overpayment
Devastated my ESA has been withdrawn - Overpayment
- Karen
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My ESA was suspended for over 3 months, whilst an inquiry was being made regards to the overpayments, they have decided to reduce my payments by £12 weekly, now I can just about afford this as a repayment however they have not backdated my money for over 3 months, and I cannot afford this.
What can I do seek the back payment ?
Much appreciated for any help, as I was relying on the 3-4 months of back payment.
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- Gordon
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Karen wrote: Hello I would love some advice, I had mistakenly been overpaid ESA Income Based, it was my husband's mistake he had additional £2500 in an account under my name.
My ESA was suspended for over 3 months, whilst an inquiry was being made regards to the overpayments, they have decided to reduce my payments by £12 weekly, now I can just about afford this as a repayment however they have not backdated my money for over 3 months, and I cannot afford this.
What can I do seek the back payment ?
Much appreciated for any help, as I was relying on the 3-4 months of back payment.
You don't say when the over payment actually occurred, in addition to reducing your weekly payments, if the DWP consider the issue to be your fault they can recover the over payment of benefits already paid from your current benefits and would use any back payments to do this.
I'm afraid at this time all you can do is chase them for an update.
Gordon
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- slugsta
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Just a quick comment - it doesn't matter whose name the money was in as all household income is taken into account.
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- Karen
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I accept the reduced weekly payments however they had suspended my benefit 4 months ago, whilst working out how much to reduce my savings by and they have reinstated the payments this week but I was relying on them paying a backpayment as I'm in arrears of 4 months.
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- Karen
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They have reduced my payments this week by £12 as well as keeping my 4 months worth of benefits, without taking into consideration that I would be in arrears.
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- Gordon
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Karen wrote: My partner has only become my husband this year and we lived in separate households, however to utilize a good savings account he used one under my name.
I accept the reduced weekly payments however they had suspended my benefit 4 months ago, whilst working out how much to reduce my savings by and they have reinstated the payments this week but I was relying on them paying a backpayment as I'm in arrears of 4 months.
It depends how long they think the over payment was for, they may decide that it only applies from when you started living together, but as the account was in your name then they may take the view that the over payment started from when the account was set up.
Have you spoken to the DWP recently about the suspended payments?
Gordon
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