Benefits Overpayments - Council Tax and Benefits
A benefits overpayments can happen for several reasons - below are details on recovery and appeals.
Set up a Payment Arrangement
If outstanding balances can't be deducted from ongoing claims, you'll be sent an invoice. If your want to make a payment email hboverpayments@basildon.gov.uk
If you're unable to afford to pay the outstanding balance in full or struggling with deductions from your benefits, you can set up a payment agreement to pay your invoice in instalments. Then we will review the weekly amount we are deducting.
Set up a Payment Arrangement for an overpayments invoice (opens new window)
Report a Change of Circumstances
Often, benefits overpayments are caused by people not keeping their details up to date. t's extremely important you report a change of circumstances that may affect your benefits claim. These include a death, change of address, new employment or people moving into/out of your home. You will be issued with a £70 penalty if you fail to report a change within four weeks of the change.
Are you using e-Services yet? 
e-Services is the easiest way to report a change of circumstances. Log into or register your secure account to manage your Council Tax and Housing Benefit account(s). You'll be able to upload documents and be automatically updated as your report progresses. Sign in or register for e-Services here
How are benefits overpayments recovered?
- Local Council Tax Support - If you have been overpaid Local Council Tax Support we will recover these monies from your council tax account and you will be sent a new bill outlining your revised instalments.
- Housing Benefit - If you are still entitled to Housing Benefit we will recover the overpayment by instalments from your on-going benefit entitlement. If your rent is paid direct to your Landlord you will need to ensure you pay the shortfall so that you do not fall into rent arrears. We will notify you by letter how much your deductions will be and when they will start.
Unless overpayments are caused by an official error and we could not reasonably expect you to know you were being overpaid, all overpayments can be recovered under the Housing Benefit Regulations.
All money owed to the Council affects the services we can offer, which is why it is important we recover overpaid Housing Benefit and/or Local Council Tax Support.
What if I disagree with the overpayment?
If you disagree you have one month from the date of the decision to ask for a reconsideration. An officer will review the original decision made and will contact you with the outcome.
If the decision changes in your favour we will send you a notification letter detailing the revised outcome. If the decision does not change, you will be notified in writing and you will have one month from the date of the letter to make a formal appeal.
If a landlord receives a tenant's Housing Benefit directly and the tenant's circumstances change, this can create an overpayment. If this happens, we may ask the landlord to repay the money that has been overpaid or recover the overpayment by making deductions to the tenant's Housing Benefit payments.
If we ask the landlord to repay the overpayment, we will send them an invoice. The invoice will show the name of the tenant and the amount of overpayment.
Sometimes, as a last resort, if a landlord does not repay an overpayment of Housing Benefit that they have received directly, the Benefits team can arrange to recover the outstanding amount from future payments of Housing Benefit due to other tenants. If we do this, the landlord is not entitled to recover the money from the tenant.
You can find out more about this legislation in Part 3: Section 75 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 (opens new window).