Luton Borough Council (21 017 640)

Category : Benefits and tax > Housing benefit and council tax benefit

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 10 Apr 2022

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about recovery of a housing benefit overpayment. This is because the Council has provided a satisfactory response.

The complaint

  1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr X, complains about the way the Council recovered a housing benefit overpayment. He does not think the £90 refund is sufficient.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide the Council has provided a satisfactory remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council. This includes the complaint correspondence. I also considered our Assessment Code and comments Mr X made in reply to a draft of this decision.

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My assessment

  1. If a council pays too much housing benefit to someone it will usually ask them to repay it. The law says an overpayment is recoverable unless it was caused by an official error and it was not reasonable to expect the person to realise they were receiving too much benefit. If someone disagrees with a decision that they must repay an overpayment they can appeal to the tribunal. The law says people should appeal within one month of the date of the decision they think is wrong.
  2. A council can recover an overpayment by using a Direct Earnings Attachment (DEA). This is when the Council asks the employer to deduct money from the person’s wages. The Council does not need a court order to use a DEA.
  3. In 2014 the Council asked Mr X to repay a housing benefit overpayment of £360. Mr X repaid £270. The Council received the last payment from Mr X in August 2014 but he still owed £90. The Council took no further action to recover the debt until August 2021 when it issued an invoice for the outstanding £90.
  4. Mr X contacted the Council to dispute the overpayment and to ask for further information. The Council provided an explanation but could not provide the original documents because they were deleted in 2020. The Council told Mr X it was too late to appeal about the overpayment. The Council applied for an DEA.
  5. The Council apologised to Mr X for applying for a DEA while he was still disputing recovery. It cancelled the £90 debt and said that its records did not show any money had been received from his employer. But, it said it would refund any money that had been taken. The Council explained what had happened and said there was no time limit to recover an overpayment and no court order is needed to use a DEA.
  6. I will not investigate this complaint because the Council has already provided a satisfactory response. If Mr X did not think the overpayment was recoverable then he needed to have appealed in 2014. The overpayment was not successfully challenged by Mr X in 2014 so he was required to repay £360. But, due to the Council’s error, it cancelled the remaining £90 and apologised to Mr X. This is a proportionate remedy and an investigation is not needed.

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Final decision

  1. We will not investigate this complaint because the Council has provided a satisfactory response.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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