What to do if your Housing Benefit has been overpaid

If you are no longer entitled to Housing Benefit and we have overpaid you, we will send you an invoice for the outstanding amount. You can make a payment online or over the phone.

You need to pay invoices immediately. We may be able to agree to accept instalments.

You can pay your Housing Benefit overpayment online using a credit or debit card. We accept Delta, Maestro, Mastercard, Solo Switch and Visa.

You can pay your Housing Benefit overpayment over the phone by calling 01934 888 121. You will need your Housing Benefit reference number and a credit or debit card.

There are other ways we can get overpaid Housing Benefit back from you including:

• taking deductions from your ongoing Housing Benefit payments
• if you are a housing association tenant, using any credit that you may have on your rent account
• making deductions from payments you receive from the Department for Work and Pensions, such as Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment Support Allowance, State Pension or Pension Credit
• taking money from payments being made to you in respect of any other tenants (landlords only)

We will try to agree a reasonable and affordable repayment arrangement with you. We can also refer you to independent government-funded debt advisers who will not charge you for their help. They can help you with most debts including overpayments of benefits, rent and Council Tax arrears as well as credit debts, store cards, overdrafts and loans.

If you don’t repay your overpaid Housing Benefit on time, we will take further action. You could end up having more costs to pay.

We may:

• refer your debt to a debt collection agency to recover money from you
• get a county court judgement – this will severely affect your credit rating and may affect your ability to get credit including mortgages and credit cards
• appoint enforcement agents to remove and sell your possessions
• get a third party debt order to prevent you from taking money out of your bank account
• prevent you from selling assets such as property, investments or land, without paying what is owed – we can apply to the court for a charging order allowing us to force the sale of property
• apply to make you bankrupt if you owe more than £1,500
• ask your employer to make deductions from your wages – we can serve your employer with a direct earnings attachment notice in order to recover your Housing Benefit overpayment