Unexpected deduction from my ESA

iza

Hi All , I received yesterday a letter that I will be deducted about 22£ from my ESA  no explanation why . I am on ESA since 11/12/2018 a I won my case in the Court. All payments were all normal over all those last 3 years until yesterday. I phoned ESA today they said it is related to my JSA claim from past . However in the letter which I received today I got info that is related to ESA but no explanation. Just the date of collection those 22 £ . All my payments were stable over 3 years. Does the government is stilling money from us now to feel the economic hole in the budget due to the Covid 19 ? Please advise or explain. Thanks 

poppy123456

Hi,

If you've had an overpayment in the past from another benefit then they can take payments from an existing benefit to repay what you owe. We wouldn't be able to give you any information as to why you owe this money. You make do a subject access request (SAR) to DWP and they will send you all the information they have about you which will include any overpayments from the past. Do that here. https://secure.dwp.gov.uk/personal-information-request/name

charlie79

Nice to see you back Poppy You've Been missed. Good luck Iza with your problem.

poppy123456

charlie79 said:

Nice to see you back Poppy You've Been missed. Good luck Iza with your problem.

Thank you! Good to see you post and i hope you're well

iza

Hi @poppy123456, thank you very much. You are right. I requested phone call from the benefit centre to clarify the overpayments and it is indeed from previous my claim when I was on  JSA before I won the case in the court. However, they said that they did overpayment between September \October in 2015. We are now in 2021 so exactly 6 years back. Do they allowed to go so much back ? I think they have enough time to check everything before espionage when the I moved to ESA as they were the one who owned me lots of money as for 4 years they didn’t pay me what I was entitled too. 

calcotti

iza said:

Do they allowed to go so much back ?  

Yes they are.

However if the overpayment was an official error on their part they are not allowed to recover it. You will need to find out more information about how the overpayment happened and if it was a mistake by the DWP you can challenge their right to recover the money. 

iza

@calcotti, thank you very much for advice. 

calcotti

If the overpayment is because you failed;ed to tell them something then they can recover it. If they had all the correct information but made a mistake then you can challenge the recovery.