Overpayments and appeals

Overpayments

Your benefit you receive to pay your rent or council tax is based on the information we are given by you. If you circumstances change, this may have an effect on your entitlement to benefit, resulting in an overpayment of benefit. If you are in any doubt about any change in your circumstances, please contact us. 

If you have been overpaid benefit, we will write to advise you of the following; 

• That an overpayment has been created
• The amount of the overpayment
• The reason for the overpayment
• The period the overpayment covers and how we calculated the overpayment
• The person the overpayment relates to (if you are a private landlord)
• How we will recover it. 

If you rent from a private landlord and payments are being made to them, we will notify you and your landlord of the overpayment.

Once we have notified you of the overpayment, you have the right to ask us to look at the overpayment again or appeal our decision.

If you agree with how we have calculated the overpayment, there are various ways this money can be recovered/repaid. These are; 

• If you are still receiving housing benefit, we can deduct an amount from your housing benefit. We will notify you of the amount we will deduct
• Or; an invoice will be raised for the overpayment and this will give details of how to make payment
• Any overpayment of council tax will be recovered direct from your council tax account. 

Overpayments of benefit can be avoided or reduced as long as we are aware of any change in your circumstances. 

If you are in any doubt that your recent change in circumstance may effect your benefit, please contact us and we will be happy to advise you.

Appeals

Any request must be made in writing to:

Benefits Section, Church Street, Dumbarton, G82 1QL

It is required to be sent to us within one month of the date that you receive your decision.

You may appeal our decision if you are one of the following:

• The person claiming the benefit
• A landlord who receives direct payment of rent
• Someone who is dealing with a claim on behalf of someone who is unable to do so themselves
• Someone that the council has appointed to act for the claimant
• Someone that the council is planning on taking the overpayment from 

If you just require further information about our decision, you can request a written statement of reasons of how we have arrived at it. If you disagree with our decision after this you have a further month to either: 

• Ask us to look at it again; or
• Appeal against the decision 

If you ask us to look at our decision again and we do not change our decision, you can appeal to an independent tribunal, our letter will advise you of your appeal rights. If however, we reconsider our decision we will notify you of this and you are given new appeal rights, in case you are still unhappy with this decision. 

If you want to appeal to an independent tribunal, we will prepare the case and send this to the tribunal and we will also issue you with paperwork to complete and return to them. You may seek advice from a Welfare Rights Officer or a Solicitor at any point.