ESA Clawback

My daughter who was a nurse for 2yrs and 90 days before being forced to take early retirement on health grounds, has just been told she will have to repay all of her ESA payments from October last year.
Initially she was awarded the contributary ESA payment as she had been paying NI contributions for over two years,now they are saying that they only take into account contributions made prior to the first of January in the year of the claim.
This means that as the claim was made in October she loses ten months from her NI contribution period, as she receives a small pension from the NHS she cannot claim on income grounds either.
Is this correct? and if so why did they pay the ESA in the first place?
I would appreciate your views.
Many thanks regards Martyn.

Hi Martyn, I think that I am right in saying that;

if your daughter filled in all her forms correctly and she was paid benefit,

they can ask her to pay the money back but can not make her pay it back as the over payment is their error.

Obviously, if she made any errors when filling in the forms, she would be liable to pay it back.

I would advise you to take her to the CAB for advice if you can.

Best wishes,
Rachel

Thanks for your views , I think I will seek advise from CAB ASAP.
Thanks again Martyn.