Overpayments and fraud

Overpayments can happen in both Housing Benefit and Local Council Tax Support. This can happen when your circumstances change, but we don't find out about it until after we've paid your benefit for that period.

When an overpayment happens, we will look into the reasons why and decide if it is recoverable and who it should be recovered from.

If your payments have been made direct to a landlord, we may decide to recover the overpayment from them. We may decide that you are the responsible person for paying back the overpayment.

If you've been paid too much Housing Benefit, we'll reduce the weekly payments from your current claim until you've paid the money back. If you are no longer in receipt of Housing Benefit, we will send you an invoice for the overpayment.

Complete an online form to request a reduction from your Housing benefit or to request a reduction from your invoiced instalments.

Overpayments of Local Council Tax Support are moved onto your Council Tax account and will then be included in your future instalments.

Fraud is when false information is given about a benefit claim or someone fails to tell us about a change of circumstances when they know it may affect their claim.

You can report fraud through the GOV.UK website or call the National Benefit Fraud helpline on 0800 854 440.