Guidance

Housing Benefit overpayments guide

This guide is for staff who deal with Housing Benefit overpayments for local authorities and housing authorities.

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Documents

Part 1: What is an overpayment

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Part 2: Classification and recovery

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Part 3: Calculation of overpayments

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Part 4: Recovery of overpayments

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Part 5: Decision notices

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Part 6: Appeals

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Part 7: Courts and civil proceedings

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Details

This guide covers all aspects of Housing Benefit overpayments, including:

  • what is an overpayment
  • classification and recovery of overpayments
  • calculating overpayments
  • recovering overpayments
  • decision notices
  • appeals
  • courts and civil proceedings
  • the legal requirements

This guidance is not intended to be an authoritative statement of the law. The law is set out in the:

Good practice guide

There is also a good practice guide for local authority staff on recovering Housing Benefit overpayments.

Updates to this page

Published 27 February 2015
Last updated 13 August 2024 + show all updates
  1. Updated example 4, para 2.64 'Subsidy easement' of 'Part 2: Classification and recovery' with an additional bullet point to confirm Local Authority (LA) action taken.

  2. All Chapters (1 to 7) have been updated in HTML and PDF format.

  3. Added updated version of 'Part 2: Classification and recovery'.

  4. Added updated version of 'Part 1: What is an overpayment'.

  5. Corrected subsidy rate in row 5 of table 2.05 in 'Part 2: Classification and recovery' from 100% to nil.

  6. Amended paragraph 5.13 of Part 5 Decision Notices to clarify what we mean by 'without prejudice'.

  7. First published.

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