It will take a young family five years to pay back nearly £6,500 in universal tax credits after ‘errors’ handling their claim resulted in them being overpaid.
Accountant Billy Pierce first started claiming the controversial benefit when he and his partner moved in together in January 2018.
For the last 14 months the couple have been receiving about £1,000 a month.
But last month the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) informed Mr Pierce and his partner Charlie Josiah-Jowett that they had been overpaid because his earnings had not been taken into account because they weren’t on the system.
The pair - who have a 14-month-old daughter Daisy – should have actually been getting £300, reports Devon Live.
The 20-year-old, of Exeter, claims he fully disclosed his income, and also notified them of a pay rise last September.
He told Devon Live: “We would have been better off not applying for universal credits at all because now are being forced into debt because of DWP’s incompetence.
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“DWP’s argument was that I should have checked the statements they sent me to make sure my income was on there, but as far as we knew everything was fine because they had taken all my earnings and additional information.
DWP have ordered for the money to be repaid back in full and a repayment plan has been agreed of £100 a month which will not be paid off for five years,
DWP says it has a duty to the taxpayer to recover overpayments, but there are safeguards to ensure repayments take into account people’s circumstances.
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It added it is introducing new technology to make it easier to identify and prevent overpayments.
Mr Pierce says he has sought the help of Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw who received a letter from DWP which confirmed Mr Pierce had told them about his earnings and that it was “clear errors have been made” regarding the handling of his claim.
The response added: “While we accept that we have made errors with the RTE feed claimants also have a responsibility to check their payment statement each month to make sure all the details are correct.”
Have you faced hardship because of Universal Credit? If so contact Bristol Live at bristolpostnews@localworld.co.uk
