An overpayment of Housing or Council Tax Benefit occurs when your eligibility to benefit decreases or ends.  This is usually due to changes in your circumstances, examples being a new job, changes to your present job, changes in other benefits, or moving to a new property.

If you get an overpayment:

• Your benefit will be revised or stopped from the Monday after the change happened.  If you delay in telling us about a change, this will result in an overpayment.
• Any overpayment of Council Tax Benefit will be added to your current year Council Tax balance and you will have to pay increased instalments for the rest of the year.
• The Local Authority will recover Housing Benefit overpayments.  This can be from ongoing Housing Benefit, a social security benefit like Income Support or by invoice.

Failure to pay may lead to the Council obtaining a Court Order.  If the amount in full is unpaid, the order may be enforced by recovering the money direct from your wages or any savings that you have.

If you have received an overpayment notification from us and need more information, or cannot pay your invoice, please contact the Overpayment Officer on 01372 732271, Wednesday to Friday (9:00am to 3:00pm)

The easiest way to avoid an overpayment is to notify the Benefit Section of your change in circumstances immediately or, where possible, before it happens.  For example, if you are moving house.

    Notify us of your change of circumstance by downloading the form below.