Housing Benefit Reclaiming from Agent

Housing Benefit Overpayment

I recently attended a Housing Benefit appeal hearing where we claimed that an overpayment was not correct on behalf of a landlord for whom we act as agents. These are chaired by a local solicitor who makes a final decision. There is very little or scope if any that you can avoid this and the council will take you to court.

You need to understand what the overpayment relates too. In the case we had HB claimed that the tenant had moved out of the property in Dec'08 and benefits were paid to enf of Feb'09. Our argument was that she had not given up the the tenancy and that the tenant still held a tenancy, we had inspected the property and found her belongings there etc. The local council claimed that the she was living at different address in another borough.

We were succesful because the local council could not prove that the tenant had been claiming the housing benefit at her new address, if she had then we woudl ahev lost. The solicitor found in our favour because technically she was still the tenant until we took possession of it as she had abandoned it and becuase there was no proof that she was claiming HB anywhere else.

I spoke to the solicitor - he confirmed there is very little if no chance of avoiding repaying overclaimed benefits in most cases.