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Welfare Benefits Handbook 2025/26
This content was last updated:
01 Dec 2025
Chapter 47: Overpayments
Welfare Benefits Handbook 2025/26
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Welfare Benefits Handbook 2025/26
Part 7: Claiming benefits and getting paid
Chapter 47: Overpayments
Back to previous
Chapter 47: Overpayments
Key facts
1. Introduction
2. Benefit overpayments that are always recoverable
Overpayments under the universal credit system
The amount recovered
From whom can an overpayment be recovered
You were owed income that you have now received
Too much mortgage interest has been paid to your lender
Too much benefit has been credited to your account
3. Benefit overpayments that are sometimes recoverable
You failed to disclose, or you misrepresented, a material fact
A material fact
Failure to disclose
Misrepresentation
Your failure to disclose, or your misrepresentation, has caused the overpayment
The decision awarding you benefit has been changed
The amount that is recovered
From whom can an overpayment be recovered
Challenging an overpayment decision
4. Recovery of overpaid benefit
The discretion not to recover
Methods of recovery: universal credit system
Deductions from benefit
Deductions from earnings
Recovery through the courts
Methods of recovery: other benefits
Deductions from benefit
Deductions from earnings
Recovery through the courts
5. Overpayments of housing benefit
Overpayments that are always recoverable
Overpayments that are not recoverable
Was the overpayment caused by an official error?
Did a relevant person contribute to making the official error?
Did a relevant person realise that an overpayment was being made?
The amount that is recovered
Deductions from the overpayment
From whom can an overpayment be recovered
Methods of recovery
Deductions from housing benefit
Deductions from other benefits
Adjusting your rent account
Deductions from earnings
Court action
Notification of an overpayment
The effect of recovery from your landlord
Challenging an overpayment decision
6. Overpayments of tax credits
Introduction
What is an overpayment of tax credits
Causes of the overpayment
What you can do
Challenging an overpayment on review or appeal
If you have claimed universal credit
Disputing recovery
Taking your dispute further
Recovery of overpayments
From whom can an overpayment be recovered
How the overpayment is recovered
For overpayments of Scottish benefits, see Chapter
68
.
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CPAG. "Chapter 47: Overpayments." In
Welfare Benefits Handbook 2025/26.
, 2025. Accessed March 10, 2026.
CPAG,
https://askcpag.org.uk/?id=-265550CITANCHOR.
CPAG. "Chapter 47: Overpayments." In
Welfare Benefits Handbook 2025/26.
, 2025. Accessed March 10, 2026. https://askcpag.org.uk/?id=-265550CITANCHOR.
Contributor(s):
CPAG
Title:
Welfare Benefits Handbook 2025/26
Site name:
CPAG
Publisher:
Publication date:
March 21, 2025
Date accessed:
March 10, 2026
URL:
https://askcpag.org.uk/?id=-265550CITANCHOR
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