Pension Overpayment

[Lobsang29]

My mother died just over a year ago and left me a small amount of money.
Now one year later I have received a letter from DWP informing me that she was overpaid the sum of £195 on the day she died which went into her account just before the account was frozen. This is classed as an overpayment and they are asking me to pay it back.
Am I obliged to pay it?

[Buenchico]

Government agencies are never too keen on telling people when payments to them are entirely optional though. When I was approaching State Pension age, I received a letter showing various gaps over the years in my National Insurance contributions, with an invitation to make up the gaps with a variety of payments (with some of those payments being for under a hundred pounds but with others being for several hundred pounds).

I phoned them up and asked what, if any, benefit I'd get from filling in the gaps in my contributions. (i.e. I wanted to know if I could increase the pension I'd receive). I was told that, as my State Pension was already at the maximum anyway, there was no point whatsoever in filling in those gaps (which the letter had failed to make clear).

[THECORBYLOON]

This is a link to DWP's Overpayment Recovery Guide (ORG) last updated December 2018, https://bit.ly/2Jyl5jg
Chapter 7 refers.

[THECORBYLOON]

The bit mentioned by HOPKIRK is also stated at para 1.24 of the ORG.

[wolf63]

I would think that the date that the payment covered, the due date of the payment and when the death was notified to DWP were taken into account before asking for the money to be repaid.

[Peter Pedant]

yes.
I am sorry for your loss - money is money, and no one lets you off because you are dead.

A fren died in late April ( 2015) and I applied for a tax rebate on the grounds he had no way exceeded his tax free amount,
and the tax man agreed and.... set if off against the balancing amount for the previous year ( so I only had to pay £200 on his account)

[Hopkirk]

Oh dear Peter, you haven't read all the answers on this thread have you?

[fiction-factory]

I think pp has read it and knows the position. the estate owes the money. the sap chase any name they have. we paid ourselves knowing we would get the estate but with hindsight we should have made them wait a year until we'd sold the only asset - a small house

[fiction-factory]

autocorrect- sap = DWP.
I agree the letters from deep are threatening and persistent and don't explain that you can wait until the estate has been liquidated or whatever the word should be.