Overpayment made to next of kin

mrh2

Hi everyone,

Hope you all well and safe .

I need an advice please .

My father used to get pension credit and AA  before he passed way back in Oct last year . The DWP paid his benefit into my personal bank account . The DWP apparently continued to pay after he passed a way of about 6or 7 weeks.

The DWP contacted me now asking me to  pay back my dad's over payment .

I did not sighn anything at the time of his claim.

I m not in capacity to pay that amount .

Can the DWP take a legal action against me if I don't pay ?

Can they passe me to debit collection agency even though its not me who committed to anything from start ?

Am I obliged to pay back ?

I am really panicking and suffer from depression and anxiety and this has caused me a lot of stress as you could imagine .

Best regards

woodbine

Did you inform them of the death? Did you not realise that it was still being paid? And yes you will have to make arrangements to repay it, did he leave an estate?

mrh2

Did you inform them of the death? Yes,

Did you not realize that it was still being paid? No because it was a n account i opened just for his benefit , hence I don't use it .

And yes you will have to make arrangements to repay it, Why ? I did not sign anything myself

did he leave an estate?No

Lisatho11987777

@woodbine I have just sent you a pm

OverlyAnxious

You say it was an account that you only used for his benefit, but that you can't pay back the money now? 

Surely the money is still in that account if you don't use it?

mrh2

I did not realize because I checked the account after 2 months and was payment made . I then checked 2 weeks ago , and again no payment was made . I gathered the the payment was stopped but did not check from which date .

I suffer from anxiety and depression as I lost both my dad and wife one after each other , and doing any simple task means a lot to me .

mrh2

mikehughescq said:

If you made a declaration of the death and can credibly evidence that on balance then you need to do a mandatory reconsideration on that basis to challenge the recoverability. Fairly straight forward really. 

Whether you realised it was still being paid is sort of relevant but not really in this instance. The argument goes that if you made a declaration most reasonable people would keep an eye in whether that had been effective i.e. whether benefits had ceased. The idea being that if you noticed nothing had changed but didn’t query that then the duty to disclose arises all over again. However, 6 or 7 weeks for a change of circumstances in a pandemic is neither here nor there so I suspect if you pursue this it will ultimately be deemed non-recoverable fairly easily. 

How can I challenge that , what should my mandatory reconsideration request based on please ?

Ross_Scope

I'm sorry to hear about your losses @mrh2.  Hopefully the above advice has been helpful for you.

mrh2

To be honest ,some comment were trying to be judgmental . This the last thing I need really .

Thank you for your kind wards .

woodbine

the link below might help people in a similar position in the future:

https://www.gov.uk/after-a-death/organisations-you-need-to-contact-and-tell-us-once

Ross_Scope

mrh2 said:

To be honest ,some comment were trying to be judgmental . This the last thing I need really .

Thank you for your kind wards .

I'm sorry to read that you feel that way, I'm sure that wasn't the intention of any of our members. 

Please note that if you are concerned by the comment of another user, you can use the "flag" button to report it to the community team.

mrh2

Appropriate reply would be without questioning the person seeking help either directly or indirectly .

The advise should be about my question without querying the my credibility . Not impressed

Nobody seems to consider my mental state despite mentioning it . People still need some more education about depression and anxiety .

I am grateful to everybody s positive input and your kind help and wishes .

Kindest regards

mrh2

I did not mean about the disclosure.

i did not mean you or everybody . I said some !

Sandy_123

Hi @mrh2 sorry for your loss, I can't add much to this as Mike has given you the information you need, hopefully you can get it sorted.

mrh2

I am not referring to you, hence I did not need you to explain where you coming from . Many thanks

woodbine

I'm sorry if you thought anyone was being judgemental i'm as certain as I can be that it wasn't anybody's intention, sometimes we have to ask for more details in order to provide the correct assistance. I suppose the simple answer is if the money that was paid into an account you don't use is it still there? if it is you can use it to repay, if it isn't then you need to speak to the DWP for guidance.
Hope that helps?

Ross_Scope

Just to reiterate @mrh2 that everyone here wants the best outcome for you, and I apologise if you felt as though anybody was questioning your credibility or judging you.

As mentioned by other members, sometimes it's important to ask questions in order to better understand a person's situation, and use the information gained to provide a better response. Those questions can also provoke somebody to consider the details that are important to their case, and help them to resolve their issue.

I can assure you that no offence was intended, but again I'm sorry that you felt that way.

Cher_Inactive

Thank you for your insight @mikehughescq and @tomatosoz - it's an interesting issue and one that you are both clearly trying to help the OP with.  Much appreciated.

@mrh2 I hope this discussion helped ease some of your concern and please let us know how you get on.  Also, how you are you coping with your mental health at the moment?  Do you feel like you're getting sufficient support with it?  If we can do anything to support you, just give us a shout.  

woodbine

@tomatosoz good to have you on the forum and read your insight, hope you stick around.

Ross_Scope

I understand your point of view completely @mikehughescq and thank you for sharing your detailed thoughts. 

I know you're expressing your views about DWP workers in general, and not directly at this user specifically, but I just wanted to clarify that they are welcome on the community, so thank you for offering your thoughts and experience too @tomatosoz. 

I hope you have found information in this thread helpful @mrh2, do you have any other questions?

Lisatho11987777

To be fair Mike the dwp trawl most online sites to find fraud claims its always happend we are liveing in that type of world  at least this person has disclosed  any one of us could report someone not just DWP