Benefit overpayments

An overpayment is Housing Benefit you’ve received that you're not entitled to.                                                                        

You’ll get an overpayment if:

• your circumstances have changed and you haven’t told us 
• we've made a mistake in calculating the amount of Housing Benefit you’re entitled to

Other reasons for overpayments may include:

• benefit payments based upon Job Seeker’s Allowance stopped when you started work
• your partner has moved in or out
• you’ve changed your address while benefit payments continued
• your wages have gone up

How to avoid being paid too much Housing Benefit

• tell us before, or as soon as, there are changes in your circumstances
• read and check your Housing Benefit award letters ^{(PDF, 178kb)} to make sure that we've used the right information to calculate your benefit

Tell us about a change

When we find we’ve made an overpayment

We’ll look at:

• why it happened
• the period
• the amount
• if the overpayment is recoverable and from who

You can request a reconsideration of a Housing Benefit award if you don't think we’ve paid you too much.

We’ll write to you and tell you how we worked out the decision.

If you still disagree with our decision, you can request an appeal of a Housing Benefit decision ^{(PDF, 38kb)} You must do this within one month after you receive our reconsideration decision.

Repay your Housing Benefit overpayment

Page last updated: 24 September 2018