An overpayment is any amount of housing benefit that you are not entitled to, that we have paid to you or a third party on your behalf.

Make a payment 

If you have been overpaid housing benefit, you can pay this back online.

Make a payment

If you can’t pay

If you can’t pay the overpayment in one lump sum, you can contact the Accounts Receivable team to discuss repayment options.

Why you’ve been overpaid

We could have overpaid you for reasons such as:

  • you may have provided us with incorrect information
  • you may not have told us about a change in your circumstances
  • we may have assessed your claim incorrectly
  • we may have failed to act upon your information promptly

Check the details we have for you

Check that the details we hold for you are correct on your notification letters. 

If anything is wrong, let us know within one calendar month from the date of notification.  

If your circumstances have changed

It is important that you let us know as soon as possible if your details or circumstances change.

Paying back the overpayment

Depending on the circumstances, we may seek to recover the overpayment from either you or your landlord. 

If the overpayment was caused by a change such as you starting work, we would ask you to repay the overpayment. 

If we paid your housing benefit to your landlord after you moved and your landlord knew you were moving, we usually recover any overpayment from them.

Recovering fraudulent overpayments 

Recovery of an overpayment will not prejudice any criminal proceedings that may be taken by the Council in respect of fraudulent overpayments. This means that if we successfully prosecute you for a fraudulent claim, you will still have to pay back the overpayment on top of any sentence or fine the court may give you.

How repayment can be made

When recovering an overpayment we will either:

  • take weekly deductions from your ongoing housing benefit payments (at least £11.10 per week which means you will need to increase the amount you pay to your landlord by the amount we deduct), or
  • send you an invoice and ask you to repay the amount

Financial support

You can ask us to reduce the deduction being taken if you feel this is causing you extreme hardship.

If you disagree with the overpayment

We will send you notification letters telling you about the overpayment and reassessment process. These notification letters give you one calendar month to write in and ask that we reconsider your claim.

You can find out more about disputing an invoice.