Overpayments

Overpayments occur when you have received too much Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit, for example because your circumstances have changed. When this happens, we will send you a letter giving you details of the overpayment and we will normally ask you to pay this money back. We will take into account your circumstances and who we paid your benefit to.

Paying back a Housing Benefit Overpayment

The way you pay back a Housing Benefit overpayment depends on whether your claim is still in payment or not, and whether you rent from the council, or a private landlord or housing association.

From instalments of your Housing Benefit

For Housing Benefit, if you're still on benefit we can take money out of each weeks benefit to recover the overpayments. There are legal limits to how much we can take each week. If the amount we take each week causes you a problem, please tell us. We might be able to change it and take a smaller amount.

From your rent account, if you are a council tenant

If you are a council tenant and your rent account is in credit, we may take this credit off the account but we won't put your account into arrears. If your account is in arrears and you're still on benefit we can take money out of each weeks benefit to recover the overpayments.

By using other money we owe you

If we owe you benefit for another period, we can hold on to the money and use it to repay your overpayment. This is called 'offsetting'.

By sending you an invoice

We may send you an overpayment invoice and payment card so you can make arrangements to pay. If you can't pay all at once, we can arrange instalments, so please contact our Telephone Team on 01329 824646. Alternatively you can email us at benefits@fareham.gov.uk.

From your landlord

If we've been paying your benefit to a private landlord or housing association, we may ask them to repay the money.

Paying back a Council Tax Benefit Overpayment

We will take the overpaid Council Tax Benefit back out of your account and you will get a new Council Tax bill with more to pay. The Council Tax office will try and collect this money from you, for example, by increasing your monthly instalments.

Other ways we can get the money back

We can ask the Department for Work and Pensions to take money out of your social security benefits.
We can also ask another council to take money out of any Housing Benefit they are paying you.