Overpayments
Overpayments of Housing Benefit
are recoverable unless:
- they are caused by an official error;
- the claimant or the person receiving the benefit could not be
expected to have known there was an overpayment; and
- the claimant or the person receiving the Housing Benefit did
not contribute to the error.
We can recover overpayments from the claimant, a person acting on
the claimant's behalf, or their partner. We can also recover
overpayments from anyone to whom we paid the claimant's Housing
Benefit (a landlord, for example) if:
- the person we paid caused or contributed to the overpayment;
or
- could be expected to have known about an overpayment caused by
official error.
We cannot recover Housing Benefit from a landlord if:
- the landlord told us in writing
that they suspect there has been an overpayment; and
- we think the overpayment arose
because the tenant fraudulently misled us, or because the tenant
fraudulently failed to tell us about a change; and
- we do not think the landlord
contributed to the overpayment.