What if I or my tenant do not agree with a decision?
If you or your tenant do not agree with our decision, you may be able to appeal. The appeal rights are different for tenants and landlords.
Landlords can only appeal against our decisions on:
- whether we will pay benefit direct to you or not
- whether we decide you should repay an overpayment or not
You cannot appeal about the amount of benefit or the dates we have awarded it for.
Tenants can appeal against any decision we have made about their benefit claim. We tell them about their appeal rights in the decision letters we send out.
You or your tenant must appeal in writing and send it to us within one month of the decision letter. You must tell us the reasons why you think our decision is wrong.
What if you have paid too much housing benefit?
If we have paid too much benefit, we can ask you or your tenant to pay the money back.
We may recover the overpayment by:
- taking money from your tenant’s benefit
- taking money from the payment we make to you for other tenants
- sending a bill to you or your tenant