Housing Benefits overpayments

To avoid overpayments, make sure you report any change that affects your housing benefits online or see other ways to contact us. In almost all cases, we will ask you to repay any overpaid amount. You may not have to repay if

  • the overpayment was our mistake
  • we could not expect you to have known you were being paid too much.

If you no longer get Housing Benefit

We will send you a bill for the full amount of the overpayment.

Find ways to pay back your overpayment

If you still get Housing Benefit

We will reduce your Housing Benefit payments until the overpaid amount is repaid. This will happen automatically, at the standard rate set by the government each financial year. In case of fraudulent activity, this rate will be higher than the standard rate. We may increase the recovery rate further depending on your circumstances.