The letter says you were overpaid for fourteen months and the council wants it back at so much a week. Three questions decide what happens next, and they are separate. Is it recoverable at all? How much a week can they take? And have you disputed it inside the month? The answers are in the regulations and the DWP’s own guide to councils.
Which overpayments are recoverable
The Housing Benefit Regulations say any overpayment, except one to which the next paragraph applies, shall be recoverable. The exception is an overpayment which arose from official error, where the claimant could not reasonably have been expected to realise, at the time of the payment or of any notice about it, that it was an overpayment.
That is regulation 100 (Housing Benefit Regulations 2006, regulation 100, checked 1 November 2026).
Both halves must hold. The error must be the council’s, the DWP’s or HMRC’s, not caused by you, and you must not reasonably have been able to spot it. The DWP’s guide to councils puts the second test in plain words: could the claimant reasonably have been expected to realise they were being overpaid, either at the time of the payment or from any notice about it (Housing Benefit overpayments guide, part 2, checked 1 November 2026).
Where late reporting leaves you
An overpayment that followed a change you did not report is recoverable, because the error was not the council’s. GOV.UK lists the changes you must report, including changes in income and savings, anyone moving in or out, moving house, and going into hospital or a care home (GOV.UK, Housing Benefit: report a change of circumstances, checked 1 November 2026). Our Housing Benefit hub covers each.
The pension-age rules soften one case. When a non-dependant moves in or their income rises, the deduction takes effect 26 weeks after the change, so a late report of that change produces a smaller overpayment than the calendar suggests. Our non-dependant deductions page has the rule and its source.
How much a week they can take
Recovery from ongoing Housing Benefit is capped. For 2026/27 the maximum weekly deduction is £14.40 for an ordinary overpayment and £24.00 where the overpayment followed a finding of fraud (Benefit and pension rates 2026 to 2027, checked 1 November 2026). The council can add to that where you have earnings or certain other income, within limits the regulations set.
If the claim has ended, recovery is by invoice, or from other benefits. The regulations prescribe the benefits an overpayment can be taken from, and the list is any benefit except guardian’s allowance, naming State Pension Credit and Universal Credit among them (regulation 105, checked 1 November 2026). A pensioner whose Housing Benefit has stopped can see the deduction appear on Pension Credit instead.
How long they have
The DWP’s guide says a council in England or Wales may pursue the debt in the County Court, but such action must be brought within six years under the Limitation Act 1980. The Act does not apply to recovery other than by court action (Housing Benefit overpayments guide, part 7, checked 1 November 2026).
So the six years is a limit on suing, not on deducting. An overpayment from a decade ago can still be taken from ongoing benefit. What the passage of time does give you is a question to ask: why the council did not act sooner, and whether its own delay is part of the error.
The month to dispute it
The DWP’s guide says the person affected has one calendar month in which to dispute the decision, and may ask for it to be reconsidered or appeal against it immediately, with a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Housing Benefit overpayments guide, part 6, checked 1 November 2026). The tribunal is independent of the council.
Ask in writing for a statement of how the overpayment was calculated, the period it covers, and which change of circumstances the council says caused it. An overpayment calculated on the wrong income, or over the wrong dates, is disputed on the figures. One caused by the council’s own delay after you reported a change is disputed under regulation 100. Both go in the same letter, inside the month.
Asking for it to be waived
Whether an overpayment is recoverable and whether the council chooses to recover it are two decisions. Once an overpayment is recoverable the council has a discretion, and a request not to recover, or to recover more slowly, is made on hardship, ill health, and the council’s part in the delay.
A council deciding a weekly rate can take the household’s circumstances into account, and a pensioner’s income is fixed, so what £14.40 a week leaves is relevant to the decision.
If the reason for the overpayment was savings, our savings limit page explains what should have counted. If it was a move into a care home, the 13-week and 52-week rules on the hub decide the date entitlement ended, and the overpayment runs from there, not from the day you left.