Housing Benefit overpayments
An overpayment means you've been given more Housing Benefit than you're entitled to.
Overpayments often happen when a change of circumstances reduces your award from a date in the past. This could be for many reasons, like an income increase.
We can recover an overpayment if you did not tell us about a change in your circumstances, or there was a delay in processing the change. This means you will have to pay it back.
How we recover overpayments
We can recover overpayments:
- from your weekly benefit, if you still get Housing Benefit
- from your landlord, if we've being paying them direct
- by sending you a bill, if you're not getting Housing Benefit anymore. You must pay the bill in full or contact us to make an arrangement to pay
- from another party - we can ask the Department for Work and Pensions to take money from your benefits each week, or ask another council to take money from any Housing Benefit they are paying you
How to appeal an overpayment decision
If you disagree with our decision on an overpayment, you can appeal.