The amount of benefit you receive to help you pay your rent and council tax depends on what you tell us about your household, income and capital when you make your claim. If your circumstances change then your Housing and Council Tax Benefit may change too.

If your personal circumstances change in a way that means you will be entitled to less benefit, and you do not tell us straight away, you will be overpaid benefit.

You will be sent notification letters telling you about the overpayment of Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit.

Those letters will tell you;

You should read the letters carefully and check the information they contain.

If you still do not understand the letters you can ask us to give you an explanation. You can do this by telephone or you can write to us.

Where your landlord receives Housing Benefit on your behalf, an overpayment may be recoverable from both of you or just one of you, depending on the circumstances and cause of the overpayment.

If the overpayment is legally recoverable from both parties, we will notify you both and make a discretionary decision about who to recover it from. There are no appeal rights against this part of the decision but you can ask us to reconsider.

Council Tax Benefit:
Excess Council Tax Benefit is recovered by adding the debt back onto your Council Tax account. You will then receive an amended bill.

Housing Benefit:
If you are still in receipt of Housing Benefit, we can make deductions from your entitlement on a weekly basis, even if the benefit is paid to your landlord. If you think the deduction will cause you hardship, you can ask the Corporate Debt team to consider reducing the amount. We will need a statement of your income and expenditure so that the team can assess your ability to afford the deduction. You can provide this either by completing the means enquiry form below or providing a written list of your income and expenditure and how much you think you can afford to pay back every week. Please note that overpayments are considered "priority debts" which mean that they are more important than loans, catalogues and credit cards. The expenditure on these other items may therefore have to be disregarded in any calculation. the Corporate Debt team will also take into account any other monies that you owe to the Council.

If you are no longer entitled to Housing Benefit we will send you an invoice for the amount of the overpayment and ask you to repay the money. If you cannot pay the sum in full, you may be able to  arrange to repay this invoice by installments. You will need to contact the Corporate Debt team to agree a repayment plan.

Listed below are full details of each repayment method.

Debit or credit card payments
Torbay Council operates a online service where you can make repayments online using a debit or credit card. You will need to quote your invoice number (a nine digit number starting with 7) to access the service.

Alternatively, payments can be made by telephoning 01803 207207.

Payments can only be made at our automated payments kiosk at Torquay Connections.

Standing Order
Payment can be made directly from your bank or building society account. You will need to arrange this with your bank. Please quote the following bank details for Torbay Council:

Post Office
Please telephone (01803) 207230 and ask for a Post Office swipe card.

Cheque
If you wish to pay by cheque you can do so in person at one of the Connections offices or by post. Please make the cheque payable to ‘Torbay Council’ and write your invoice number on the reverse. For postal cheques, the address to send them to is:

Corporate Debt
Torbay Council
Town Hall
Torquay
TQ1 3DR

Receipts are not normally issued for postal payments, but if you do require one please enclose a stamped-addressed envelope with your payment.

If you think the decision is wrong, you should get in touch with us within one month of the date on the benefit decision notice or we may not be able to consider any dispute.

You can contact us by phone on 01803 207201 or by writing to:

The Appeals Office
Benefits Section
Torbay Council
Castle Circus
Torquay
TQ1 3DS