I had to sell my home to repay nearly £20,000 after ticking the wrong box on a benefit’s form

A DAD who looks after his ill son had to sell his home to pay back £20,000 in carer’s allowance after ticking the wrong box on a form.

George Henderson, 64, from Leyland in Lancashire was told he would have to repay the eye-watering sum due to a mistake he made when first applying for the benefit.

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He applied for carer’s allowance while he was looking after his 42-year-old son John, who has learning difficulties and is a heroin addict, The Guardian reports.

The support is paid to those providing at least 35 hours of unpaid care a week, in most cases to disabled or sick relatives.

George wrongly ticked a box saying he was unemployed, when in fact he was earning £7.50 an hour as a self-employed taxi driver.

Some experts have suggested that the rules are catching people out because they are unfairly complicated.

George told the newspaper he found the form “tricky” and that the box was relevant to John.

At the time, you could earn no more than £120 a week after tax and expenses in order to still get the benefit.

This has since increased to £151 a week.

Earning any money over this threshold would see you lose all of your benefit allowance.

This is different to some other benefits, like Universal Credit, where this is more of a tapered approach so that those who do work don’t lose all of their money at once.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which pays the benefit, also looks to get any overpaid benefits back.

It comes as figures revealed that in 2022-23, 26,700 carers were asked to repay sums relating to earnings breaches.

More than 800 were repaying sums between £5,000 and £20,000, and 36 were repaying more than £20,000

The rules mean that there’s no time limit on how far back the DWP can go to spot errors and demand money back.

But it’s important to remember that with most benefits if you were later found to be eligible, you can make a backdated claim.

For example, carer’s allowance can be backdated three months.

‘IT BREAKS MY HEART’

For more than six years, the DWP didn’t notice that John was filing tax returns as well as receiving carer’s allowance.

However, if George didn’t claim carer’s allowance, he says his son would have got disability allowance of £64.30 a week.

This means George was only claiming an additional 30p a week – or £109.20 over a seven-year period.

In August 2017, George was found guilty of fraud at Preston Crown Court, fined, given a 32-week suspended sentence and electronically tagged.

He had to sell his home for £115,000, and was left with just £6,000 after paying off his mortgage and the DWP, he told the newspaper.

George said: “It breaks my heart. I’ve been back and looked at [the house] twice and I’ve actually broke down and cried.”

After his conviction, he was left homeless and had to be housed by the local council in sheltered accommodation.

He also became too unwell to work and now receives £1,300 in Universal Credit to cover his housing and living costs.

“It’s absolutely ludicrous. It’s actually cost the taxpayer or the government money by doing this,” George said.

A recent DWP Family Resource Survey (FRS) found 21% of households with an adult carer was living on less than the average UK income.

And 5% of those receiving Carer’s Allowance had used a food bank in the last 30 days, compared to only 1% of the wider population.

A spokesperson for the DWP said: “We are committed to fairness in the welfare system, with safeguards in place for managing repayments, while protecting the public purse.

“Claimants have a responsibility to inform DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award, and it is right that we recover taxpayers’ money when this has not occurred.”

What to do if you breach the earnings limit

If you breach the £151 earnings limit, you should try and proactively report it to the DWP as it is classed as a change in circumstances.

You can report any change in circumstances online via the Government’s website.

But you’ll need your National Insurance (NI) number to hand, details of the person you’re caring for and details of the change.

If you have been overpaid Carer’s Allowance, you will have to pay it back in full or instalments via the DWP Debt Management platform.

This is also on the Government’s website.

If you don’t do this, the DWP can take deductions from your work salary, or even pass your case on to a debt collector.

If you don’t engage with the debt collector, it may then take your case to the county courts.

You can dispute an overpayment if you don’t agree with it, but you’ll need evidence as to why you claim to not have overpaid.

You can do this via what’s known as a “mandatory reconsideration”, which you can submit to the DWP online, via phone or by letter.

The specific contact details you’ll need to send any correspondence to will be on the decision letter you receive from the DWP.

Once the DWP has received your mandatory reconsideration, you will receive a “mandatory reconsideration notice” informing you whether it has changed its decision.

If you disagree with that outcome, you can appeal to the Social Security and Child Support Tribunal.

A judge will listen to both sides of the argument before making a decision.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing [email protected].

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This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk